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A WOMAN WITH A RECORD 





MRS. FINLEY ANDERSON 




NEW YORK 

G. W. Dillingham Co.y Publishers 

MDCCCXCVI. 




TZ ’,■ 

, A s'^-c.'sW 


COPYRFGHT, 1896, 

BY 

MRS. FINLEY ANDERSON 


\_All Rights Reserved.'] 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER I. 

A MIDNIGHT REVERIE. 

A WOMAN, like a horse, should have a record. 
Mine is fast enough to win. 

Women slike and men adore me ; this increases 
my vogue and doubles my value. 

Youth is slipping from me like a dream. I gath- 
ered its roses and crushed them; but there is still 
a whiff of perfume amid their leaves. 

I am modish and well-groomed ; Redfern dresses 
me. I asked this conundrum at Fred Manton’s 
supper : “ What is the difference between God and 

Redfern?” No one guessed it. I explained that 
God gave women a skin but Redfern gives us plum- 
age. 

They laughed and drank more champagne. 

“ No beautiful woman should live beyond forty,” 
a married man, my hHe noire^ declared. 


3 


4 


A JFOMAJ!f WITH A RECORD. 


“Then begin, at home, to kill,” I :.‘etorted in de- 
fence of my sex. 

Ellis Rosseau, my friend, joined issue with me. 

“ Few women learn the art of fascination, until 
their roses begin to fade. Science, art, fashion pre- 
serve clever women from age ; there is for them only 
youth and death. The conquests of life are made 
by women of physical and mental culture within 
the period from thirty to fifty. Buds and full- 
bloom roses challenge equal attention from men ; 
the richer perfume of the rose ofttimes seduces their 
senses.” 

“ Will you tell us how you held Herbert Lee so 
many years, a man of fancies varied as the summer 
flowers ? ” Mrs. Willis asked me, with a keen glance 
from her bead-like black eyes and a flash of her 
small, glistening teeth that she longed to fasten in 
my flesh. 

“ With pleasure, Mrs. Willis,” I replied. “ I will 
give you the recipe to use upon your lovers. I drove 
him with the finest ribbons I could get.” 

The glasses were refilled, and Ellis Rosseau 
smiled. 

I was painfully sober. Sometimes this mood pos- 
sesses me. My heart and brain seem frozen. 

Herbert, alas, is dead ! He loved me well. His 
memory thrills my blood like rare old wine. The 
lost days, the dead days, oh, the beauty of life, then ! 
is shadowed now. 

■ “ Write a book, Lenoir,” my friends suggest. 


A JVOuVAN V/ITII A RECORD. 


5 


“ Tell your own story to the world.’' I would pre- 
fer telling the histories of my friends ; they might 
be less interesting, but safer to relate. 

Have I friends ? 

Only among the poor, whose burdens I lighten. 
They call me a mascot. A little chorus singer who 
is ill thinks me a saint. The savor of life is to help 
others. Often the world’s most worthless ones are 
pushed to success. Lacking appreciation or grati- 
tude, they win life’s prizes, through good luck and 
the help of another. The worst blows we receive are 
given by the hand we have held in friendship. 

Mrs. Elmer swears friendship for me. I let Mr. 
Frost escort me home from her salon the other night. 
Later, Mrs. Elmer said, with her sweetest smile : 

“ Dear, did you like Mr. Frost ? I asked him to 
take 3^011 home.” 

Next time Mr. Frost’s call followed his flowers, I 
said, with an innocent look : 

“So sorry, Mr. Frost, your good-nature was im- 
posed upon by Mrs. Elmer the other evening. I 
shall take care she does not have to ask your escort 
for me again.” 

“My dear Madame Vaillant,” Frost declared, in 
liis tenderest, 3^et chilling tone, that has won him 
the soubriquet of Jack Frost, “ the honor was sought 
b3’ me ; but if Mrs. Elmer considers herself respon- 
sible for my pleasure, let us believe my memory 
truant.” 

Spoken with the chivalry of the South, wliose men 


6 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


rank women first ; wlio betray them witli a kiss, and 
cross swords for their honor like gentlemen. 

The jealousy, shallowness, and mountebank farce 
of society have driven me into the world of Bohemia, 
with its watchword of pleasure ; its shimmering mists 
covering a dozen pasts ; its creed of forgetfulness ; 
its light-heartedness and hope ; its darkened, restful 
mornings and its brilliant feverish nights, where 
light, sound, and color crowd sorrow from the heart ; 
where pastiles perfume the air and wine quickens the 
blood and flowers line the path from the boudoir to 
the ball-room ; where the siren song of love woos the 
senses and bewilders the brain. Into this atmosphere 
of art, music, pleasure and passion, I plunge. Its 
clever people interest me. I And no stupidity, be- 
cause, when interest fails, I say, I am stupid to-night, 
I will go home, smoke a Nestor, sip a liqueur, play 
with my little dog Yvette, summon a lover, create a 
situation, rather than be bored with anything. 

Occasionally I get nasty and crush people, as I did 
that Italian, Turkish mongrel-like woman, who, lift- 
ing her lorgnette in jNIrs. Elmer’s salon, asked, “ Are 
there any interesting people here ? Are there any 
women with pasts? ” 

“ My dear Mrs. Dreggs,” I said, “ have you not 
observed that the woman with a past has been re- 
placed by the woman with a future ? ” 

Then I went to supper with an artist and forgot 
the friction with Mrs. Dreggs. 

This world of Bohemia accepts me as a mystery, 


A IKOMAJV IVITfr A liECORD. 


7 


a woman of moods peculiar and manners perfect. 
Were they acquired in Belgravia? Did my satins 
trail their shimmering lustre through foreign courts, 
or did my gems blaze at the opera balls of Paris ? 

I sing like a prima-donna, and dance like a -pre- 
miere danseuse. Was I princess of Belgravia or of 
Bohemia ? Do I enjoy life or accept it ? Is my past 
as smooth as my brow ? Have I no story or have I 
a record ? 

The veil of silence conceals all. The great heart 
of Paris hides my birthplace. A dozen foreign 
capitals share and contradict my career. I am at 
times an enigma to myself. I am tempted to amuse 
upper Bohemia by sending out cards reading like this : 


Midnight to Three A. M. 
LIVING PICTURES. 


It is midnight now. Good-niglit, gay world, sad 
world ! Mine is the gift of making you laugh. 
Some women make you weep. You have amused me 
and displeased me ; but your roses burn their crimson 
fragrance into my heart. Good-night, glad world, 
good-night. 



8 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE palmist’s PROPHECY. 

Clever women do stupid things. Mrs. Dreggs 
forced herself on me to-day, after my message that I 
could not accompany her to the theatre this evening. 

My masseuse was here, and went on oiling me. I 
have camphor and alcohol, after this, to make me 
thin. 

“You see, my dear Mrs. Dreggs, I am quite a smooth 
article. You will kindly keep the secrets of my 
toilet, but you need not mind mentioning my figure.” 

“But massage is so passS, my dear ! That was all 
very well for our mothers, but we fin de sQcle children 
seek something different ; we affect electricity ! ” 

“ There is nothing new under the sun,” I quoted, 
oracularly. 

“ Evidently you have not met Dr. George Smith,” 
said she. 

“ Smith ? Smith ? Really the name seems famil- 
iar ! It is a new name, you say? Or is Dr. George 
Smith a new man? ” 

Mrs. Dreggs shook her finger at me in playful 
manner. It was a long, lean finger, well manicured 
at the tip. She smiled, too, showing little white 


A WOMAN 11727 / A liECOliD. 


9 


teeth that I could not l»e][) thinking might snap, on 
occasion, like a terrier dog’s ! 

“ It is Dr. Smith’s treatment that is new,” she ex- 
plained. “ It is very up-to-date.” 

“ Do tell me about it,” I urged. “ Is it something 
as soothing as massage ? ” 

“Massage isn’t in it with Dr. Smith’s electrical 
treatment, Madame Vaillant. You go to him feeling 
like a faded leaf, and trip out with the step of a 
dShutante.’’' 

“ You must take me there,” I said, with decision. 

“ With pleasure,” assented Mrs. Dreggs. “ Won’t 
you lunch with me to-morrow — say at the Plaza, as 
his office is there. I would be delighted to introduce 
you.” 

“ To-morrow it is impossible,” I replied — “ but I 
have no engagement for Saturday.” 

“ Ah, that would be better,” she said ; “ as then we 
could go to the matinee afterwards. Suppose we 
take in Irving and Terry. They are playing Macbeth.” 

I gave a little shudder. Macbeth ! and a matinee ! 
Either one would give me the horrors ! 

“ Thank you — lunch witli me,” said I, “ and we can 
then see John Drew at the Empire Theatre ; but 
Macbeth is a little too serious. I desire comedy in 
the mimic world, French Opera, and even Vaude- 
ville. Guilbert and Anna Held’s sensuous smile and 
risque songs appeal to my moods and enchain my 
fancy. The fro'ii-frous and chiffons of life please me. 
I too am a mere burlesquer.” 


10 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOBD. 


Mi-s. Dreggs gave a queer, thin, jiiimusical laugh, 
that came from her chest, not from her heart. 

“ I will tell your fortune,” she said. “ It was once 
my business. Mr. Dreggs turned out to be a bad in- 
vestment for me. When my cash was gone, I put on 
considerable cheek, a Turkish veil, and an air of 
mystery, and read the future for a guinea a head.” 

I aroused to interest in my guest. 

“ Why did you quit the business ? ” I inquired. 

“ One day, in a moment of dignity, after winning 
at play, or signing a contract with a manager, my 
husband destroyed the cards, as he had my hopes. 
He declared that his wife should not degrade him by 
telling fortunes. This ended my career as a seeress. 
The experience was amusing. I met at good houses, 
in the evening, people who in the morning had con- 
sulted the veiled prophetess concerning their intrigues 
and lovers. I escaped detection and paid the living 
expenses of my handsome spouse.” 

I ventured a comment on Mr. Dreggs’s good looks. 

“ Yes,” his truthful wife admitted ; “ but his mouth 
tells the story of a misspent life. Sometimes the tale 
is written in the eyes and beneath them, but the weak- 
ness of my husband’s mouth should have warned me 
not to trust him. I was much older than he. I had 
looks then, and fine clothes and gems. Disappoint- 
ment deepened the lines in my face and my heart, my 
clothes grew shabby, my jewels were first pawned, 
then sold. To-day Sam must effect a loan. I am 
powerless to help him more. He must have money 


A JVOMAN WITH A RECOED. 


11 


to get out of town. He must have it for his board 
bill, his luggage is held ; money means to him ability 
to grasp liis latest chance.” 

“ If he fail in borrowing, what then ? ” I asked. 

“ I must be held as hostage,” the woman scornfully 
said. “ I have been so often in this position, that I 
do not mind it now.” 

“ This is the shadow' of Bohemia,” I thought. “ I 
have felt only its sunsliiiie.” 

“ Let me read your palm,” Mrs. Dreggs offered. 
“ I don’t go in much for palmistry, prefer cards. 
The lines reveal only the past, the cards tell all.” 

“ What nonsense,” I laughed. “A clever woman 
like you, having faith in a system worked out of bits 
of pasteboard.” 

“ Your line of life is long ; your past is checkered, 
the heart line broken. Shall I tell all I see ? ” 

“ Do not hesitate. I am beyond being hurt,” I 
replied. 

“ Then you are beyond happiness. One must feel 
a blow that one may appreciate a caress.” 

“ Do you believe in the animal devotion that per- 
mits a lover to abuse you ? ” I asked, looking sharpl}'- 
at Mrs. Dreggs. 

“ Yes, when love is born of animal instinct, when 
the first attraction was of the senses, and the bond is 
of the flesh, only,” she said. “ I know a woman with 
a career on two continents, whose throat, beneath her 
fluffy boa, had a purple stain. Wedded now to an- 
other, she admits that the big, blonde brute whose 


12 A fFOMAJV IFir/i A RECOliD. 

hand bruised her white flesh was the only man she 
ever loved. I understand that emotion, so do you, 
Madame Vaillant. If you have not met such a type of 
man, you will meet him ; the blows he will deal you 
will hurt your heart more than that man’s hand hurt 
the other woman’s throat.” 

“ You read this in my hand ? ” 

“ I feel it in my heart,” the woman said. “ Your 
career is brightened by success, not by happiness.” 

“ The one means the other,” I laughed. “ Take 
the cards, Mrs. Dreggs.” 

I began to feel creepy. I did not wish this seer- 
ess to penetrate my past. 

“ Here is trouble with a woman, treachery of a 
man, financial difficulties. A new man in your life, 
a fatal influence. Let me warn you to avoid this 
influence. You are nearing a turn in your career. 
The road you will tread is thorn-lined and cloud-hung. 
Its bits of sunshine are so rare, they seem to gleam 
through a mist. A heavy fog surrounds your 
future ; the horn of danger already faintly sounds 
through the sunshine of to-day. Shuffle and cut tlie 
cards once more,” she said. “ The same dark knave 
pursues you. A crisis approaches. Let us trust it 
be an episode, not a tragedy.” 


A }F03/A^ IFITU A RECORD. 


13 


CHAPTER III. 

AN INTROSPECTIVE COMMUNION. 

Again it is night. The ball is over. I am moody. 
That woman affected my nerves. Her prophecy may 
be realized. I am unfit to be alone. I need always 
an audience of men. 

Sentiment is not good food for me. I pitched 
over my ideals long ago. 

What is this ? A note from the Austrian, that 
little black-eyed devil who hopes to place me in his 
collection of feminine gems. 

He read me quite well as we strolled in the con- 
servatory to-night, while the orchestra played “ The 
Honeymoon March.” The fountain flashed in the 
moonlight, the crowd swept 1)3'-, while the Austrian 
did his sweetest to win my fanc3\ 

Here is the continuation of his assault on 1113" heart. 
I must Iiave a cigarette while perusing this outburst 
of passion. 

“ Queen of women.” This is clever. “ Let me 
make 3’ou happy. We will go into heaven together. 
You seek pleasure, not happiness. You have not 
loved. There is a love of the soul and of the senses. 
You have experienced onl}" the latter. You have had 


14 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


fancies, passions, but not real love. Let me teach 
you this, my star.” 

- Enough of this. The Austrian would win Lenoir 
Vaillant with a love ditty. 

Cannot he comprehend that the avenue to my heart 
is paved with gold ; that the entrance to my boudoir 
is hung with flowers ; that the price of my smile is a 
gem ; that my favors have cost men a fortune, and a 
lifetime of regret ? I hinted that to-morrow will be 
my birthday. Reference to age before men is unwise, 
but an occasional birthday is not bad. 

I will light my Nestor with the Austrian’s love-ditty! 

The men I meet are not magnetic. I really long 
for love, the one perfect sensation of life. Love, 
with its mystic charm, its fatal influence. Love, the 
heaven-born instinct, apart from passion’s mad spell. 
Love, to lift my life from depths of diablerie to 
heights of heaven. Love, the divine ! Let it de- 
scend like an aureole on the life of a woman with 
a shadowed past, a restless present and a hopeless 
future. I will accept its penalty with its blessing. 
Give me true love, dear God ! I am undone to-night. 
My dual natures conflict. I must steady my nerves. 
The room seems full of phantoms. Thought brings 
lines in the face. Some one asked Ellis Rosseau the 
secret of his boyish, unlined face. 

I answered for him : “ He has neither vices nor 

heart.” 

I must make the creed of Bernhardt mine. “ No 
yesterday, no to-morrow.” 


A WOMAN WITU A RECORD. 


15 


Incomparable woman, of moods like the sea, with 
deathless passion and perpetual youth ; the soft voice, 
like a nun’s at vespers ; the tigress eyes alluring to 
destroy ; the restless brain, demanding the world 
for its audience, the kingdom of art for its throne. 
I should have been an actress. My feet would have 
gone to men’s souls. God gave me fine tints, like 
a sunset, with a nature like an opal, changeful and 
fiery. 

I had better been born dead ! A great artist 
declares me too critical to attain happiness, for 
myself, while showering it on others. Another adorer 
says that I am like froth on champagne ; when I 
enter a room I mount at once to his brain ; when 
I depart, only dregs remain. 

Pretty tricks of speech. I prefer Ellis Rosseau’s 
interpretation of me : — 

“ Lenoir, you are a child in innocence, a Cleo- 
patra in experience,” he once said. 

This man always gives me ideas and puts me at 
my best. He does not make love to me. “ I am 
a better friend than lover,” he declares. 

He does not fatigue me, as most men do. This 
afternoon, while I rested, after a reception, Rosseau 
dropped in. 

“ Dine with me,” I said. Dinner was served in 
my boudoir. A little feast of dainties, that Rosseau 
loves, with the taste of sybarite and school-girl com- 
bined. Terrapin and sweet-breads, topped off with 
an ice, instead of toasted biscuit, Rochefort and dSmi- 


16 


A WOMAN WITH A HECOHl). 


tasse. This man drinks Kumyss and Vichy ; no 
stimulants. He claims they do not stimulate, but 
exhaust the vitality and mentality. 

We drifted into the cycle of thought which cements 
our friendship. Rosseau keeps a little silver-bound 
book, like a prayer-book, in which he notes the epi- 
grams he hears. 

“ If we met oftener, Lenoir,” he said “ my note- 
book would be quite full.” 

I appreciate these pretty speeches from Rosseau, for 
they come from his heart. 

“ Your breadth of view on the subject of mar- 
riage and divorce pleases me. It expresses the sen- 
timents of the great silent masses of cultured peo- 
ple, who are rapidly throwing off the yoke of 
social prejudice and freeing their bodies from the slav- 
ery of uncongeniality. You would not doom a life 
to misery and sin in the crude beliefs of ancestry, to 
the dogmas of church and priest. Let the cry of 
nature silence the voice of the priesthood.” 

“ Rosseau,” I said, “ my idea of love is like art in 
development. It needs breadth, coloring, embroider- 
ing with new patterns and shades.” 

“ Paris has a bit of romance that appealed to my 
fancy,” my guest said. “ It is the story of a one-time 
operatic star, who, unable to wed her lover because 
of his parents’ opposition and the laws of France, lives 
as his loyal wife unrecognized by society, unknown 
to a world once at her feet. Marches! visits her, but 
dares not ask lier to her salon to meet the great lights 


A WOMAN WITH A UECOliD. 17 

of the musical'’ world and the youth entrusted to her 
care.” 

“ This woman, this real Avife, should not be ostra- 
cized, but canonized,” I declared. 

I went on to explain to my friend my ideas re- 
garding passion versus love. “Women of high in- 
tellectual attainments or great hearts are swayed by 
passion, but sentiment is its poetry. Without it a 
Avoman sinks to the level of a dog or a man.” 

“ What do you think of a Avoman and man Avith 
dead passion, with frozen hearts, living on in mar- 
riage ? ” Rosseau asked, leaning across the table and 
fastening his eyes on mine. 

“ Such association, instead of marriage, is cruci- 
fixion,” I replied. 

“ I thought you AA^ould give that ansAver ; ” he said. 
“You kneAv much of the late Mrs. Rosseau. I want 
you to understand that I considered our marriage a 
pleasant friendship, that ended Avithout becoming a 
melodrama. This is the proper climax Avhen tAvo 
people Aveary of one another, Avhether or not bound 
by the tie of marriage.” 

“ Would you Aved again ? ” I questioned. • 

“ Yes, ” he replied. “ But not for love. I could not 
harmonize Avith a Avoman less clever; while the fric- 
tion of one so mercurial Avould exhaust my mentality 
and disturb my atmosphere of Avork and of art.” 

“ Play your trump card,” I suggested. “ Marry 
for money or social position.” 

A smile cold as sunlight on a glacier- toucln cl 


18 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


Rosseau’s lips; the look of a devil flashed in his fine 
eyes. 

“ Find the woman for me,” he sneered. 

“ Young or old? ” 

“ Old. Fifty to seventy ; it matters not. I do not 
want a companion, only a banker,” he laughed. 

“ What equivalent would you offer this woman ? ” 
I asked. 

Rosseau’s face lighted up. “I would make her 
life interesting,” he said. “ I would build with her 
gold a little palace ; design wonderful gowns for her ; 
find rare gems with a history, and surround her with 
fascinating people who do interesting things.” 

“The man who makes his wife’s life interesting 
merits a reward. It is so rare a situation,” I ac- 
quiesced. 

Not many years ago the Rosseaus were poor in 
goods, but rich in happiness. The woman was of the 
serpent type, with flashing eyes and teeth. She was 
without figure or youth, but with rare mentality and 
physical magnetism ; the style which flatters and en- 
slaves men. A woman with the purse of a pauper 
and the taste of a duchess ; a willowy creature, in 
plush and crepes, held in place by old silver clasps 
and pinned on her shoulders with antique gems. 
W omen of this type have pins, not stitches, in their 
garments. 

When unable to buy fine stuffs, Mrs. Rosseau posed 
in china silk, made like a Greek robe and girdled 
with an Etruscan belt. With only one garment be- 


A WOMAN WITH A BECORD. 


19 


neath this robe, she lounged on yellow silk cushions, 
and with melting glances brought men to her feet. 

At this period, Rossseau’s enthusiasm had gone for 
all but art. His heart and his face had become 
frigid. The woman’s work was completed. 

These two did not quarrel ; they quit. A marital 
misfit thrown aside. 

The woman sailed away to a new port, and the 
romance of Rosseau’s life was ended. 


20 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE BOND FORGED BY HELOISE. 

Another birthday, with no real home, few friends, 
only some would-be lovers and a little girl pet who 
gave me these violets and a kiss. 

I should weed romance out of Heloise’s head. 
She must have a great career, with lier beauty. I 
will give her distinction and teach her the arts the 
world has taught me. She shall not be coarsened 
and degraded. She shall simply learn to control her 
affections. 

At midnight Heloise came to my rooms, to say 
good-night. Dj-awing a footstool to my feet, the 
girl clasped her hands in my lap and looking up in 
my face said, “ Dear Lenoir, I was strangely drawn 
to you when first we met. I feel there will come a 
sorrow to me that you must share. The bond be- 
tween us is strong. You' are to help or to destroy 
me. Your future is linked with mine.” 

The girl believes herself in love. This is not 
her first experience, but it is of greater inten- 
sity. 

Heloise is nineteen. Her charm for me is natural- 
ness. She confesses her love with tlie abandon of a 


A iVOMAN fVITH A RECORD. 


21 


woman who has tasted pleasure, yet with the inno- 
cence of a girl who has only pictured it. 

I must stand hy her. She needs a friend. I 
must try to make her life as mine should have 
been. 

People will sneer at the friendship of a princess of 
the world of pleasure for a girl of nineteen. I am 
beyond caring for the world’s opinion. All I desire 
are its benefits. 

Heloise lighted a cigarette (I did not teach her to 
smoke) and told me her little love-tale, while she 
touched my throat with her lips and stroked my hand, 
with her soft, magnetic touch. 

“ It is my fate, dear,” she said, “ to love the man 
who does not return it. You cannot understand this. 
You are too partial to judge me as men do, but it is 
my fate. Some day I shall marry, with this passion 
for another in my heart. The result you can foresee. 
It will be a few months of fidelity, then senseless 
flattery will turn my foolish head, ‘the inboin 
passion ’ that tempts me now will sway me entirely 
then. I shall go the road other young married 
women tread. At first I may have but one lover, 
then as my moral nature slowly dies, I will increase 
my conquests and smirch my honor blacker and 
blacker with sin.” 

The girl’s eyes shone with the intensity of passion ; 
her white teeth gleamed through her parted lips ; her 
hair swept her shoulders, like a dusky cloud ; her hand 
tightened its clasp on mine ; a mist gathered before 


22 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


my eyes, and through it I seemed to see the picture 
she had painted of her life. 

“ Heloise dear,” I said, clasping her in my arms, 
“ I will win your lover for you. You shall taste the 
sweets of love, but you must not wince at its poison. 
Remember that young as he is, Frank is called a high 
roller.” 

“We can roll together,” the girl laughed, touch- 
ing my lips with her cupid' bow of a mouth ; the 
pretty French mouth will bring her so many of life’s 
sweets, maybe so much of its sorrow. 


A IVOuVAN WITH A RECORD. 


23 


CHAPTER V. 

LENOIR ANATHEMATIZES MEN. 

Fred Manton sent me this turquoise pin from 
Dreicer’s exquisite stock. He wrote a gracious note, 
declaring that Time pays me compliments. 

Fannie Prince says she was twenty-seven last week. 
Four seasons ago she acknowledged to twentj'^-six. 

A woman’s age does not matter. It is how she 
looks. She must be clever to be fifty and look 
thirty-five. 

It was nice in Fred to remember my birthstone for 
his souvenir. Success the turquoise means. Suc- 
cess was predicted for me by that uncanny Mrs. 
Dreggs. In what line, I wonder? 

To win the hearts or rather the passions of men is 
no honor — only a few have hearts. If I complete this 
little record of my time, it will sell, because Lenoir 
Vaillant wrote it. Curiosity will prompt my set to 
taste the dressing I make for my social salad. 

There will be missing links in my story, as in my 
life. My embroideries, friendships, loves and work 
are incomplete. Some day the wheels of my mental 
machinery will stop. My work will be done. 

Another day gone with no red letter to mark it. 


24 


A JF03fAN JJVTII A RECORD. 


I am not interested in anything. What shall I do 
with my life ? 

“ Saint ” never did better work than in rescuing 
me from myself last evening. She brought to me 
Colonel Martin, a man with a flattering tongue and 
clever wit. We went to Koster’s, had a box, and 
took in the variety and living pictures. 

Three specimens of gilded youth occupied an ad- 
joining box ; they smoked cigarettes and looked 
bored, until a dancer whirled on the stage, with flash- 
ing, sensuous eyes and low-cut frock. One man 
blinked, another tossed his cigarette aside, the third 
pulled himself. well to the front. 

“ It is the first sign of life they have given,” I 
whispered to “ Saint.” 

The nude in art appeals to me. The living pic- 
tures charm my fancy. I realize only sentiment in 
the human form. A certain woman’s voice and man- 
ner repelled me until 1 saw her in a Turkish bath, and 
took in her bearings. The slender, straight limbs 
like a race-horse, the fine curves and smooth, firm, 
shining flesh. “If only jmu possessed heart and 
soul,’’ I thought, “ you fine human thing.” 

“ Saint ” revels in Bohemia, though of P uritan blood. 
“ Saint” is a burlesque ; we cannot call her a devil. 
It would not be civil. The world that says so much 
and knows so little, concludes that this girl’s morals 
must be as erratic as the stories she sends to press. 
It wishes her to be wicked, on tlie theory that “ to 
the pure all things seem impure.” 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


25 


Poor, deluded world ! Little it knows of the real 
life of its victims, of the eyes that smile, while the 
heart bleeds, of the despair that succeeds revelry, and 
of the little boats that pass in the daytime, freighted 
with dead hopes. 

One must suffer, that one may tell a story to the 
world. One must have love before playing Juliet. 

Passion does not always destroy. It often digni- 
fies. It puts new blood in their veins, softer emotions 
in the heart. It shades and rounds and perfects life. 
Wlien it does not drag the soul down to hell, it lifts 
it to heaven, 

An oracle of society says, “ A society woman with- 
out a lover is like a kite without a tail : — both fall 
flat.” Most married women of society have an under- 
study. 

I am invited to a “ dove ” dinner this week, with 
eleven other “ doves.” 

That the dinner party be not an Adamless Eden, 
thirty men are to join us at nine o’clock. Thirty ser- 
pents descending upon the doves. The serpent in Eden 
was a man. How else could Eve have been tempted. 

The serpents of Eartli, alas, who destroy the little 
white dove, innocence, in the hearts of the young, are 
men of jaded passions, seeking new sensations or a 
repetition of the old sad tale of lost virtue ; men 
who live on vanity and feed on conquest, whose 
glance is poison, and touch is death. This is the 
type that crowd club windows, with coarse criticism 
on all femininity that passes b3\ 


26 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


“ She is a fine stepper, well rounded, good bust, 
swagger girl, straight of limb, get on to her curves, 
wants a lover, knows a good thing when she sees it.” 
Thus the gamut is run of man’s loose speech and 
coarse desire. 

We seek these human reptiles for the rose-bowers 
of our daughters ; they are entrusted with them at the 
play, in the caf^s and alone in our drawing-rooms, 
with shaded lamps and silence. 

Is it strange that virtue has become a jest in the 
crowded cities of our land ! That girls, like my poor 
little Heloise, have the desires of a woman in the 
heart of a school-girl ! 

Men are responsible for the loose morals of the girl 
of the period ; their reckless, unsatiated passions fill 
divorce courts and dens of sin. 

My life was shaped by a man. The finish depends 
on the start. 

My life has been a succession of Waterloos ! 

At present I am financially stranded. I must get 
a check from old Moneybags, on promises. Three 
se^-sons he has been daft about me. Were he a 
widower I could marry him and go in tlie swagger set. 
I have only a few of their vices, but the others I could 
soon acquire. 

“ Marrying a beautiful woman is dangerous pas- 
time,” old Moneybags confided to me. 

True ; but flirting with one may be equally dan- 
gerous, at least to your purse, my old friend. 


A U'O.V.lxV WITH A RECORD. 


127 

Rumor tells of a lover Madame Moneybags formerly 
met at a French dressmaker’s flat. 

The woman was Madame’s maid, until the flat was 
rented by the lover, for the trysting place of society’s 
favored queen and himself. The denouenumt was 
characteristic of the French. The girl’s increasing 
demands being unmet, she went to the husband with 
the tale and revealed to Madame, in deliant shame- 
lessness, that the caresses of the “ dear friend ” were 
not alone received by the mistress but were bestowed 
quite as frequently upon the maid. 


28 


A WOMAN WITH A liECOKD. 


CHAPTER VI. 

IN THE SHADOW OF DEATH. 

The past week was full of events that I have been 
unable to chronicle. Gloom followed gladness. I 
revelled in the brightness of Life, and felt the shadow 
of Death. 

I was in ball dress when a message came that one 
of my heart children, Rosette, the chorus singer, was 
dying.^ 

A picture came before me of tlie cottage at Aix, 
where I first saAV Rosette, dancing on the grass, with 
a wreath of flowers on her head. Her mother, a 
beautiful woman, sang at the Grand Opera in Paris. 
Rosette rarely went to the opera. Her mother did 
not wish her to go on the stage. 

Rosette once told me of the visits of a fine gentle- 
man who took her on his knee and called her his dear 
little girl. 

At last the fine gentleman’s visits to the cottage 
ceased. 

Rosette said he had gone across the sea. 

The mother’s step grew heav}', her face quite white. 
One night on her return from the opera, a sharp pain 
struck lier heart. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


29 


“ Be good, always be good, Rosette,” slie whis- 
pered, stroking the child’s hand. Then she kissed 
her, and falling back on her couch the woman was 
dead. 

• On an old French escritoire., in a gold frame set 
with Rliinestones, was a man’s photograph ; his feat- 
ures were reflected in Rosette’s tear-stained face. 
Removing it from the frame, I read on the reverse 
side : 

“To Elise, with my deathless love.” 

There was no clue to the man’s identity, only that 
brilliant, mocking face, with its wicked eyes. 

A distant relative took charge of the child, and 
made her a chorus singer. 

One night I recognized her in an opera herein New 
York. Seeking her at the end of the opera, I gave 
her my card, and she often visited me before a fever 
attacked her. 

Now the voice was silent, and the heart would soon 
cease to beat. 

Life had been a tragedy to Rosette since her birth ! 

Tossing aside my jewels, I threw a cloak over my 
evening gown, jumped into a cab, and soon reached 
Rosette’s home. 

The wind moaned like a lost soul. The snow lay 
like a shroud on the quiet streets. Rosette’s home was 
drearier still. A few logs burned on the hearth, and 
in a little brass bed the girl lajq white and wan. 

Placing some red roses on her pillow, I pressed one 
in her hand. 


30 


.1 WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


“ Rosette, smell this, dear. Doesn’t it recall the 
footlights and music ? ” 

“ Out, madame^' the girl faintly said, her voice full 
of tears and husky with death. I am sleepy and 
cold,” she whispered. “ I am glad I always re- 
membered poor mamma and came home quite alone. 
Is there a real God ? ” 

“ Yes, my little Rosette, there is a good spirit who 
guards you.” 

Neither prayer nor priest were needed to guide the 
girl’s soul beyond the shades of death. 

I sometimes call myself an agnostic. So many 
faiths have failed me. But in the shadow of death 
I strove to light this girl’s path with the torch of 
heaven. 

The red rose fell from her thin hand. I placed it 
on her heart and Aviped the cold brow. 

A flutter of the eyelids, a weary sigh, and the end 
had come. 

The snow had ceased falling. Stars were blink- 
ing in the cold, wintry sky, the moonlight shone 
through the window and fell on the silent dead. 

I watched beside Rosette, after the nurse had pre- 
pared her poor little body for its final sleep. 

Tlie jewelled frame, encasing the unknown man’s 
picture glistened in the moonlight. The girl had 
kept it through her wandering life. 

I again read its legend : “ To Elise, with my death- 
less love.” 

“ Maybe the man isn’t as bad as he seems,” T mused. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOltD. 


31 


“Maybe he didn’t know tlie Avoman cared so much; 
maybe lie meant to return some day, and that some 
day was too late.” 

All gone, mother, child, and love. A shipwreck of 
passion, an epitome of life. 

I put the picture in the pocket of my cloak and 
drove home in the cold, gray dawn. 


32 


A 1F0MAJV WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE FATAL MEETING. 

“ Men are a tough lot,” Will Swift admitted to me, 
at Mr. Dellac’s studio musicale. 

“ Why not women, too ? ” 

' “ Because it hurts them more. They go home and 
think. Men only enjoy." ^ 

“ Cannot women drown thought in pleasure ? ’’ I 
asked. 

“ Not exactl}",” the big, blonde Apollo exi)lained. 
“ Women deaden conscience, they cannot kill it. I 
remain out at night and find on reaching home that 
my wife lias been crying her eyes out. This is her 
way of punishing me — she tries to reach my con- 
science.” 

“Vain attempt,” I laughed. 

Not far back in this man’s past was a chapter with an 
actress, at whose door the ruin of more than one 
life was lain. This episode ended, he married a 
dashing girl with no past and liigh hopes of a 
future. 

Five years have changed hope into acceptance, with 
this winsome wife. To-day, at 'Dellac’s musicale, 
while ITan9on’s voice rang through the crowded 


A JFOMAN irrrif a record. 


33 


rooms, the pretty woman llirted like mad with a hand- 
some Southerner. 

“ There is no jealousy in this age,” I overheard a 
woman say. “ No one cares enough to be jealous.” 

“ Is this true? ” I thought. 

A woman in blue velvet and old lace brushed 
against me. I caught the breath of the violets she 
wore and the glitter of her flashing eyes. I do not 
like this woman. She is snake and peacock com- 
bined. She goes in for literature and women’s clubs, 
is unique in belongings, and entertains lavishly. 

Slie always laughs, as she talks, a joyless laugh, 
which jars on me like a mockery of mirth. 

I pity her, in her jewels and splendid clothes. 
Her life, like her laughter, is out of tune. 

I once heard her husband confess to have never let 
a good thing escape liim. Possibly that is the cause 
of his wife’s mirthless laugh. 

This studio is matchless, outside of Paris. Its 
hangings are from the Orient, its works of art from 
the treasure-places of the world, its canvasses from 
the master hand and tireless brain of a true artist. 

Punch is served in a crimson tent ; women lounge 
on broad, inviting divans, the effect of their gowning 
is increased by tlie neutral tones of old tapestries 
and the color of the hangings, with their dash of 
gold. 

Tlie front salon is crowded with devotees of music 
and art. Upon a canopied dais, richened and softened 
with old rugs, beautiful women sit in the shaded 
3 


34 


A WOMAN WITH A liECOltD. 


light, while clever ones mingle with and catch tlie 
friction of the throng. 

Pressing his way through the rooms came Albert 
Vane, a stockbroker, of some looks, much conceit, 
good form and plenty of nerve. 

He recognized in me big fish for his net. I firet 
met him at Monte Carlo. 

Fixing his keen, metallic eyes on mine and smiling 
enticingly, he asked : 

“ Do you still gamble, Madame Vaillant, or has 
the prosaicness of New York driven the fever of 
Paris from your brain ? ” 

“I find New York lively enough, Mr. Vane, and I 
still gamble a little in stocks. Speculate is the polite 
way to put it.” 

“Beg pardon,” said Mr. Vane,, “but at Monte 
Carlo it was dead cold gambling we all indulged in. 
On this side we speculate, only.” 

T explained to Mr. Vane that luck was against me 
just now, and turned to present him to Heloise 
Neville, who danced over to me, seeing a good-look- 
ing man at my side. 

Heloise was radiant, in a bodice of cerise satin, 
draped with yards and yards of black chiffon, banded 
on the shoulders with black velvet and Rhinestone 
buckles. A tiny bonnet of jet was perched on the back 
of her hair, and a bunch of violets adorned her muff. 

Heloise imitates me in this fad of wearing violets, 
I am her model in many things. 

Albert Vane will like Heloise. 


A if^oMAJv^ ir/m a hecord. 


35 


I have no other use for this man than as a volatile 
acquaintance. I may go into stocks more deeply 
through his information, and he can have a seat now 
and then at my table. Contact with a few of my 
richer guests will give us both opportunities that this 
keen-eyed, cold-voiced man will take advantage of. 

I can make a deal with him. He is “ out for the 
dust ! ” 

My instinct is against Albert Vane. I regret 
having let him know Heloise. 

Breaking up their tete-a-t^te by presenting a less 
dangerous man to the girl, I took Vane off to the 
punch-room. One of his good points is that he does 
not drink to excess ; even this indicates the cold 
method of his nature. Physically he is tropical, 
with a heart of ice. He could become stone. 

Heloise must not know him too well. He is quite 
forty. Men of his age and type make saddest havoc 
in a girl’s life. 

Her presentiment flashed in my mind amid the 
music of the gladsome scene. 

“ I feel that there will come a sorrow to me that 
you must share. You are to help or to destroy me.” 

I must help Heloise by warning her against 
Albert Vane; my fate seems to be to do good with 
one hand and harm with the other. 

Morris Brownmore joined Vane and me in the 
punch-room. If less dashing and youthful than when 
half the matinde girls in town were at his feet. Brown- 
more retains his fascination of manner and speech. 


36 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


It is said he once claimed power to win aii}’- woman. 
I quite understand this. His magnetic personality 
and wit are dangerous even to me. 

He plays with his audiences, as Bernliardt some- 
times does when a milliner’s bill or a lover has given 
her trouble. When interested in his work, Brown- 
more acts superbly. When displeased with cast or 
play, or in a mood, he punishes his audience with 
carelessness. 

“Are you in New York now?” Albert Vane 
asked Brownmore. 

“No. In Harlem,” was the quick response. 

His reply to an offer from a Boston manager was : 
“ Your offer received. I sent it to Puck.” 

I shall have a theatrical supper some Sunday even- 
ing and ask Brownmore as a guest. He amuses me. 

Bohemia must amuse me. Society must be fed, 
flattered, and amused. 

The difference between the “ smart set ” and the 
clever one is, that the women of society travel more 
and speak more languages. They are better dressed 
and groomed ; their vices, pleasures, habits and heart- 
aches, are similar. The woman of Bohemia is less 
self-controlled. She makes more scenes. She has 
less veneer and more heart. 

The young women of the swagger set advertise 
their cliarms in full length pictures of themselves in 
the Sunday papers. The limit of this social notoriety 
was reached by a beautiful girl sliowing up in print 
in a gown, tres decolUtSe, with mere shoulder bands. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


37 


To accentuate the sensationalism of the cut, the 
young lady liehl a Japanese spaniel in her lap. 

Girls of tliis pattern are clever at repartee. A 
man asked one of them to accompany him to the 
French ball. 

“ I might be discovered,” she demurred. 

“ Go in tights,” he suggested. 

“ I might be explored,” she quickly retorted. 

Tills young woman went to the Frencli ball, last 
season, with several of her set. They wore black 
satin dominoes, and leaving their box when the fun 
reached its height, mingled witli the mad whirl of 
the half world, in the dance and rough meri y making 
on the Garden floor. 

A French ball in New York bores me. It lacks 
the esprit of Paris. The French are not quite them- 
selves outside their own splendid Capitol. 

“ Society lias made rapid strides in license, while 
the French ball has become too decent,” F red Manton 
declares. 

The line between the two worlds constantly 
narrows. 

Society completes its luncheon and dinners with 
Creme a Yvette and Nestors. Pohemia takes cognac 
with its demitasse and smokes Caporals between 
courses. 

Both drink absinthe frapp6. 

I lunched recently at the Waldorf with six other 
ladies. It might have suggested the seven Virgins, 
had not the hostess’s husband settled us in place and 


88 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORl). 


evidently the bill as well, before going down town. 
These women were eminently proper and dull ; only 
two were divorced. We gossiped a bit about the 
scandals of the one hundred and fifty decent people 
remaining in society, and decided that the ladies of 
the two most notable scandals and separations, were 
in fault. Then we speculated as to the forthcoming 
modes. 

The luncheon was a model of virtue, stupidity and 
temperance. Following blue points came sweet- 
breads and green peas, served with Apollinaris. 

“No ‘Polly’ for me,” I thought, and the sweet 
bread stuck in my throat. 

With the birds and salad one bottle of Ruinart 
was served. Three women declined it. My glass 
was filled. Some remained in the bottle when we 
topped off with coffee and cheese. 

No cocktail at the start, no pousse cafe at the fin- 
ish. I prefer a duet at a table in “ the Midway ” at 
night, with all the chappies and the brightest women 
in town sitting or strolling by. 

This luncheon recalls the saying of a little sou- 
brette, that she would rather be “ a chippie in the 
Tenderloin, than a princess in Harlem.” 

Heloise, in her immatureness, declares she would 
rather be “ the other woman” than the wife. 

Poor, deluded, fated girl ! Little she knows of 
“ the other woman’s ” woes, of her lonely hours, her 
envy of women less clever, but better placed than 
herself. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


39 


The cloak of a husband often covers moral ragged- 
ness; but his neglect and lack of affection bring 
compensation, in the wife’s power to sweep her silken 
gowns through the halls of fashion, to pick and 
choose from its devotees, to make and unmake a 
woman’s reputation or her career. 

The woman of fashion adds to her jewel-box and 
goes to more balls wlien a scandal touching her home 
sweeps the town. 

“ The other woman,” tossed aside, and mayhap 
made desperate, strikes a lower note in life’s fatal 
scale, and stills its music forever, with a bullet through 
her passionate heart. 


40 


A WOMAN' WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

AN AFFINITY IN A BIIOKEKS’ OFFICE. 

The offices of Bull & Bear, Bankers & Brokers, 
are the finest in town. Their customers’ feet sink 
in soft velvet carpets, as their money goes into the 
full coffers of the noted firm. -Broad cushioned chairs 
invite to ease. All the humorous papers of the 
day distract men’s thoughts from the loss of their 
gold. 

A great board covering nearly one side of the wall 
records the stock fluctuations which make or unmake 
the onlooker’s day. A gilded clock ticks the rest- 
less hours away. Two small writing-desks are for 
customers. One is dark for the losers, the other is 
liglit for winners. 

The dark one is oftener used. 

Business goes on at a rapid rate in these splendid 
offices. A few rich men beat the game ; the poor 
ones get left. It illustrates the Bible creed, “ To 
him that hath shall be given.” 

These wise men get on the inside of deals and are 
in touch with the master minds of finance. They 
are let into the formation and breaking up of pools. 
While the rank and file of speculators await advances 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


41 


on points given out, these chiefs of the street iiave 
already unloaded on private information as to the pas- 
sage of dividends or the earnings of a road. 

^ It is a great and mighty game that is played each 
day, ending in a very large time for the winner, or a 
tragedy for the loser. 

The fever of Wall Street poisons the blood for all 
time. Once a speculator, always one. There is no 
turning back. Fortunes melt away, lines come in 
the face, the hair is streaked with gray, heads and 
hearts ache, homes are wrecked, hopes destroyed, but 
the game goes ever on. 

The Stock Exchange is the big faro bank of the 
country ; brokers are the dealers, customers the 
players. When the money and nerve of one are 
gone, another replaces him. From ten in the morn- 
ing, when hope runs high, until three in the after- 
noon, when it has ebbed and flowed, the great game 
of the world is played. 

Wall Street is the main spring of trade. Success 
there means success everywhere. 

No class of men spend money more lavishly than 
brokers. The best seats in the theatres, choicest 
viands in restaurants, finest turn-outs on the drive, 
are theirs. This may last a few months or always. 

The broker beats the game at the start. Tlie cus- 
tomer maj' beat it at the finish. No men are better 
dressed or more generous. A stingy broker would 
meet with no toleration from his class. 

I went to-day to the office of Messrs. Bull & Bear, 


42 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOlW. 


and was met with a smile by Mr. Albert Vane, the 
junior member of the firm. 

I might almost say he received me with open arms 
as he ushered me into his private office. 

“ Any clever tips to-day ? ” I asked. 

“ Nothing special. I am bullish on the Grangers. 
Let me buy you a hundred ‘ Paul ’ at the market. 
It is good for a couple of points.” 

“ You may get me a hundred ‘ Paul ’ on a point 
reaction.” 

“ Better buy it now,” Vane insisted. 

“ See here, Albert Vane,” I said, smiling my 
sweetest in his handsome face, “ I am here to give 
points, not to get them.” 

Vane did not look flattered, but he still smiled. 

“ You asked for my views,” he said. 

“ Quite right. I got them. I wondered if they 
would coincide with my information.” 

A skeptical look came into his eyes. “ Playing 
the market on points is a losing business,” he de- 
clared. 

Then I told him of a call a woman made on me 
earlier in the day. Her object was to induce me to 
put up money for a deal to be managed by a broker 
on private information. I was to get half profits, the 
other half being divided between the interested par- 
ties. There was to be a statement each week, and 
assured success. 

Matching my brains against the woman’s tongue, I 
gathered the name of the millionaire representing the 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


43 


great corporation now buying the stock, on which the 
deal was made. Their object being to control the 
property, that surely had a bright future. 

“ Buy it on all drops,” the woman advised. “ It 
will shortly sell at 80.” 

She also demonstrated the impossibility of an out- 
side broker successfully handling the stock, because, 
as he bought, the insiders might sell. 

“ Only the throne or one at its feet can know the 
secret Avorkings of this most important deal,” the 
woman argued. 

Albert Vane listened, with an incredulous smile. 

“ It is a skin game. I don’t trust points from 
women,” he laughingly said ; “ but come to lunclieon 
with me and we Avill drink to your success and 
mine.” 

Albert Vane made no love to me in Paris or at 
Monte Carlo, where the play ran high, and his pale 
face was lowered to mine as Ave staked our gold on 
the green table, side by side. 

Money Avas his God then ! 

“ It is his God noAV,” I thought, ■ as aa^c sipped 
Perrier Jouet together. 

If this man has use for me, I, in turn, have use for 
him. 

I like his manner. He pulled my gOAvn aside from 
the dust, as we brushed against a dooi’Avay. Ilis com- 
ments on its fit pleased me. His compliments on my 
figure and bonnet appealed to me. 

I take a Avoman’s delight in admiration from men. 


44 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOUD. 


but the stunning stockbroker cannot reach my lieaj-t. 
]\Iy knowledge of the world is too varied for his shallow 
nature to comprehend. His rdle is to win the fancy 
of a fickle girl, and not the love of a woman’s heart. 

“ Pretty girl that Miss Neville, to whom you pre- 
sented me the other day,” Vane mused, toying with 
his salad, and still trying to fix my fancy with his gaze. 

“ Yes, Heloise is pretty, and a coquette. She pos- 
sesses the fickleness and charm of youth. I am 
rather fond of the girl and would dislike seeing her 
harmed.” 

“ Is that a shot at me ? ” 

“ It is the expression of my heart. Youth should 
wear the lilies of purity, not the roses of passion,” I 
feelingly replied. 

“ You affect violets,” Vane commented. 

“Yes, they are emblematic of the middle ground, 
and should adorn the woman neither maid nor wife. 
They breathe of pleasures past, and allure to pleasures 
possible.” 

“The violet brings the fragrance of spring. It 
seems the fitting flower of youth. Your girl friend 
wears them,” Vane demurred. 

“ Heloise desires to be like me. My tastes as to the 
toilet, my caprices and friends she seeks for her own.” 

“ Let me hope to be classed as your friend,” Albert 
Vane laughingly said ; “ and remember, Lenoir, that 
Miss Neville’s honor shall be safe with me. I would 
take lilies to her, but I would offer the crimson rose 
of passion to you.” 


A IVOMAN WITH A liECORD. 


45 


I suggested that Vane dine with me at seven on 
hh-iday. “ I would make an earlier date, but you 
brokers are engaged so long aliead,” I declared. 

As the restaurant was near his office, Mr. Vane 
fisked me to return there with him, for a glance at 
the closing market. 

“I will, with your permission, write a couple of 
letters and then drive you home,” lie said. 

In the private office a man awaited the broker’s 
return. Vane received him with more than usual 
empressement of manner. 

“ A good customer,” I thought. 

The broker did not at once present the man to me, 
but led him off to a distant corner of the room. 

“ I will not detain you long,” he said, in an aside to 
me. 

I studied this man’s face while waiting. It was 
cold, with strange lights in the amber eyes. The 
white brow was shaded by dark-brown waving hair, 
the large ears, almost flat across the top, turned hack 
from the face, denoting an untrustworthy, selfish, 
possibly evil nature. The straight, rather large nose 
gave the face a suggestion of character which it other- 
wise lacked ; the' mouth Avas weak, witli sensuous 
lips, drooping at the corners. Glistening teeth, be- 
neath a dark moustache, made the stranger’s smile 
most fascinating. 

I glanced again and again into those wondrous 
eyes. Could they darken and flash in the heat of rage 
or the fierceness of passion ? 


4G 


A WO^fA]V WITH A BECORD. 


I was marvellously drawn to this man, who chatted 
flippantly with Albert Vane. He attracted my worse 
nature and repelled my better one. 

I never resist a caprice, a fancy, or a passion. These 
impulses make or mar my life. I am not so much 
fatalist as believer in our own power to save our- 
selves. Still, my life, and the lives I have studied, 
seem to have the dark threads of destiny interwoven 
with the golden ones of hope and desire and faith. 

“ It is a problem beyond our ken,” I mused, while 
making a mental sketch of this “ new man,” who had 
come across my path. 

The broker arose, and coming over to me requested 
permission to present his friend. Monsieur Solon 
Maurel, a Frenchman by birth, but some time resi- 
dent of New York. 

As the man’s eyes were fixed upon me in acknowl- 
edgment of the introduction, the pupils seemed to 
dilate and darken, until the amber light faded out of 
them. 

His superb physique attracted me more than his 
face. His tall, lithe figure was attired with Parisian 
elegance. Although appearing to be a large man, he 
was not over five feet ten in height and weighed 
about one hundred and seventy pounds. 

In my travels over two continents, of all the superb 
men I had met this Frenchman, Solon Maurel, was 
to my fancy the most distinguished. 

As both men sat beside me, I thought the broker’s 
flippant style and bright, reckless smile, contrasted 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


47 


well with the stranger’s hard, brilliant fascinating, 
face, manner, and speech. Yet, Maurel, I felt, could 
draw the soul out of my body with his changeful 
eyes, and deep, rich voice. 

“Albert Vane for amusement and use. Solon 
Maurel for love,” I decided, with the keen divina- 
tion which should save me from my doom. 

“ You are not Phencli by birth, Madame Vaillant,” 
Maurel asserted, rather than questioned. 

I told him that my mother was an American, my 
father a Frenchman ; that Paris was my birthplace, 
its language my childish tongue, its customs, pleasures 
and people dear to my heart. I added that my 
parents lay side by side in Fere la Chaise., and that 
the wide world was my home. 

During my acquaintance with Albert Vane he had 
not elicited this much information from me regarding 
my life. 

Had Solon Maurel held and questioned me with 
his eyes and speech still more, I would have revealed 
my entire past to him. I felt ray identity sinking 
into his ; my will being controlled by those marvel- 
lous, magnetic, amber eyes. 

“ Are you quite ready to accompany me home ? ” 
I asked Vane. 

Holding my hand out to the Frenchman, I mur- 
mured something about trusting we should meet 
again, then moved towards the door. 

An irresistible impulse made me turn and ask M. 
Maurel to join us at dinner on Friday. I told liiin 


48 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


that my other guests would be Mr. Vaiie, and Miss 
Ileloise Neville. 

During the drive home I was distraite., and scareely 
heeded the broker’s chaff as to the impression his 
friend had made upon me. 

“ You are not susceptible, as I have found to my 
sorrow,” he laughed, “but Maurel is always fatal to 
women. I know not Avhy, but his esclandres with 
women of the liaut-monde and Ids tragedies Avith 
Avomen of the demi-monde have been noted here and 
in Europe. I maiwel that we did not run against him 
at INIonte Carlo. lie is a desperate gambler. I don’t 
mind telling you that he is called a rone., as AA^ell. 
Considering your great caution, is it Avise to bring 
Miss Neville in touch Avith a man so fatal to the 
fair?” 

“If she can resist you she Avill be entirely safe 
Avith Maurel,” I philosophized. 

A little shiver Avent through me. Would Maurel, 
too, be bcAvitched Avith the beauty and youthful charms 
of Ileloise? 

Solon aNIaurel’s face haunts me to-night like a ghost 
of the past. Where have 1 seen it before ? Not in 
my past haA^e tliose hypnotic eyes done their fatal 
Avork. He has figured in the story of some other 
Avoman I have knoAvn. It baffles me. I don’t like 
Solon Maurel. He is Avitliout heart, honor, or soul. 
Has he come to me in dreams, or liave we jostled in 
the crowd of Paris? 

A fancy strikes me. d'lie cottage at Aix, Elise 


A WOMAN WITU A RECORD. 


49 


and the dead child. I have it at last. Here is the 
picture of the face which smiled on me to-day, more 
world-worn and emphasized by time, yet the same. 
The souls of two dead women cry out to me against 
this man, a wrecker of hearts and hopes, a destroyer 
of innocence. 

Yet I, who would save women from sin and from 
sorrow, will bring Heloise under this masterful in- 
fluence, more deadly than opium, which steeps the 
senses alone, while this man’s fatal charm may en- 
slave her soul. 

Heloise, ever Heloise ! Whence springs my ten- 
derness for this baby-faced girl ? Let her look out 
for herself. Albert Vane will fill her little measure 
of love. But to me, starving for its food and thirst- 
ing for its wine, Solon Maurel will hold forth its 
poisoned chalice. 

Feed on its sweets, say his lips. Drink of its wine, 
say his eyes. The Dreggs woman’s prophecy is at 
hand. 

“ A new man in your life. A fatal influence.” 

I, too, am clairvoyant to-night. I read on the wall 
in letters of blood : “ Love me, hate me, lose me, 

yet love me, Lenoir ! ” 

4 


00 


A JVOMAN WITH A liECOliH. 


CHAPTER IX. 

THE BEGINNING OF OUR FOLLY. 

Friday is to me the most lucky of days. I gam- 
ble more successfully on that than on any other day. 
To me there are no “Black Fridays.” Tlie most 
potent events of life have also happened then. I 
thought of this circumstance through all the glorious 
sunbright day, while with feverish interest I watched 
the tape or drove alone in Central Park. 

Strange emotions moved me. Though most social 
of women I craved solitude to-day — tlie solitude of 
the swaying throng to one alone in its midst. 

I refused to take Heloise with me on tlie drive. I 
wanted to lounge in my carriage and think of Solon 
Maurel. 

Albert Vane calls Maurel a gambler. Has he 
wealth or poverty ? I mused, yet cared but little. 

I longed again for the tendresse of that marvellous 
smile. I sighed to color and pale beneath the glance 
of those fathomless eyes. 

INIy mood was an exaltation of passion, ere pas- 
sion had begun. 

]\Iy nature is to plunge, not creep, to my doom. 

'Phe winter afternoon was as balmy as spring. 


.i \VOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


51 


The blue of the sky, the gold of the sunsliine, the 
glitter of the gayly-dressed crowd I always shall re- 
call. In the midst of this charming scene the worst 
forces of my nature worked. 

I had longed for love as monarchs long for power. 
I had craved its sweetness as women crave rare gems. 
I had prayed for its divine fire as a priest pleads for 
the pardon of a sin. Would my desires be realized, 
my dreams fulfilled, in this new and sudden frenzy 
for a man whose eyes had looked for a little while 
into mine ? 

Is this the potent, material influence which is felt 
by some women always, and by others never ? 

I drove long in the fading sunshine, until the air 
grew chill ; then I came home, to find some Jacque- 
minots with the compliments of Albert Vane, and a 
large bunch of violets from Bridgman’s bearing the 
card of Solon Maurel. Was my fancy for this flower 
already known to him, as to half the gay world of 
New York, or did he divine my wishes ? 

Far back in the past I had worn fresh violets each 
day during a brief, restless affair of the heart. The 
blonde, blue-eyed lover who sent them died suddenly 
while on a pleasure-trip to the city of the Golden 
Gate. Mayhap his memory, treasured above the din 
and folly of my life, lends sweeter perfume to the 
violets which I wear. 

We were six at dinner. The other guests were 
Mrs. Caton and Harry Sinclair. 

For a petite woman, Mrs. Caton’s figure is perfect. 


52 


A WOMAN WITH A BECORD. 


She is piquant, clever and full of repartee. A most 
desirable dinner-guest. Mrs. Caton, with the crisp- 
ness of youth in face and manner, has the heavy 
heart of financial disappointment. 

Married young, to the son of a noted millionaire, 
she knew onlj’- the flowers of life until desperate 
business failures struck their thorns deeply into her 
heart. Husband, money, and hope were swept out 
with tlie tide of disaster. 

With the spirit characteristic of her sex, who more 
often than men rise superior to a financial blow, this 
plucky little woman swallowed her pride and sought 
to retrieve her fortunes in a “ smart ” business ven- 
ture. 

Ill-luck, alas, following her like a merciless doom, 
accentuated by her faith in those associated with her, 
turned this seemingly brilliant success into dire fail- 
ure. The woman in this case was the victim of the 
mail. It might have been called “ the man in the 
case.” However, the wreckage was absolute. 

]\Irs. Caton deliglited Albert Vane with her risque 
stories between courses at dinner. 

“ I met old ]\Ir. Witherbee at a musicale the other 
night,” she said, “and asking him to have a launch 
with me, he declared tliat he never drank. ‘ What 
are your vices ? ’ I asked. 

“ ‘ Only women,’ the old reprobate confided, ‘ but 
it is difficult now to find an3dhing that is pleasing 
among women. I have no morals, but I am fastid- 
ious.” 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


53 


“ ‘ It is easier to be moral and not fastidious,’ I 
declared.” 

Another of Mrs. Caton’s stories was on Mrs. Dar- 
ing, a Avoniau equally at home in court or in cottage, 
who can entrance a dinner-party with her wit. 

Going at noon to the chambers of a society man, 
Mrs. Daring was informed by his valet that Mr. Ray 
was out. Hearing his voice through a partly open 
door, the visitor insisted that her call was on impor- 
tant business, and pushing aside the frowning valet, 
Mrs. Daring rushed into the front salon in time to 
catch the familiar voice of a woman of the smart set 
in the adjoining chamber. 

“ Mrs. Reckless is ahead of me this morning. It 
doesn’t often happen ; but the heart lends swiftness 
to the feet,” said Mrs. Daring, with a tantalizing 
smile to the young society swell who, for a brief 
space, had worshipped at her shrine. 

The story leaked out, through the antagonism of the 
women. Of course it did not come from young Ray. 
A man’s stories are on others, not on himself. A wo- 
man often betrays her escapades to her dearest friend. 

“ Why so pensive, INIiss Neville ? ” the widow jok- 
ingly asked Heloise during a pause in the badinage. 
“ Are you, or have you been, iir love ?” 

“ I have been in love several times,” was the girl’s 
frank admission. 

“ Were you happy ? ” 

“Yes,” Heloise smiled. 

“ Then j'ou were not in love,” Mrs. Caton decided. 


54 


A ]r03lAN WITH A RECORD, 


The pretty widow, drifting into metaphysics, asked 
if we believed in platonics between two emotional 
natures. 

“No ; there must be love or nothing,” I declared. 
“ Passion cries out for passion. A touch of the hand, 
a glance of the eye kindles its flame. Physical con- 
tact is the match which ignites love.” 

Mrs. Caton advanced the theory that man does not 
receive as much pleasure from several intrigues as 
from one real love. 

“ But he escapes more pain,” I moralized. “ The 
butterfly flitting from flower to flower draws sweet- 
ness and no poison in its ephemeral existence. The 
lonely bird, singing a dirge for its dead mate, may die 
of what we human beings call a heart-break.” 

Comparing the brilliant widow and Heloise, I de- 
cided that in a race for the heart of a flippant man, 
the girl had the likeliest chance. Hers is the golden 
charm of youth. 

A winsome blonde, with big blue eyes, like old 
Delft, recently remarked, in my presence, that she 
would not appreciate love for which beauty was the 
sole magnet. 

“ It dies suddenly as it was born,” she wisely 
said. 

This little beauty, once a stage favorite, sits in her 
pretty .apartment and watches her husband write 
plays and novels. I hear that tlie lover husband is 
already plucking the leaves from a new rose, brush- 
ing the bloom from a new fancy. 


A WITH A RECORD. 


55 


“Is there a true man in this whirlpool of Metro- 
politan life ? ” 

Tlie amber eyes of Solon Maiirel darkened in the 
soft candle-light as he leaned towards me, and I felt 
the pressure of his arm against mine. 

I had taken but little wine, yet the room swam 
before me. My bosom rose and fell, my heart 
fluttered like a caged bird, my hand grew cold, and 
the fire of desire and the chill of despair seemed at 
once to burn and freeze my blood. 

Strangely my will was slipping from me beneath the 
thraldom of those unholy eyes. 

Later, Maurel and I wandered off to a remote 
corner of the drawing-room. 

Bending bis face close to mine he whispered, 
“ Could you love me ? ” 

This was the beginning of our folly. A kiss was 
the baptism of our swift passion, resistless as the 
rushing forces of nature, implacable and eternal as 
fate. 


56 


A IVOMAN WITH A RECORD, 


CPIAPTER X. 

LENOIR DABBLES IN STOCKS. 

A isiESSAGE at the telephone summoned me this 
morning to the offices of Messrs. Bull & Bear. 

Heloise, in a smart tailor gown and English walking 
hat, looked in my apartment, as I was making my 
toilet. 

“ Let me accompany you,” she begged. 

I feel less compunctions of conscience about bring- 
ing this girl and Albeit Vane together since the 
fancy for Solon Maurel has taken possession of me. 

A sudden passion like this inclines one to drag 
women down to the same moral pla-ne. Only when 
its ashes have smothered its fires, do we warn others 
against its fatal flame. 

A week ago I wanted to save Heloise. Now, I feel 
like letting lier play her own little game with fate. 
So I granted her request, and together we went to 
the broker’s, and delighted the heart and brought a 
sunny smije to the cUhonnaire face of Albert Vane. 

“ Your pet stock is breaking, as I thought it would. 
“ Chicago is selling heavily,” said Vane to me. 
“ Shall we short it ? This is my judgment. I warned 
you against women’s points.” 


A IFpMAN WITH A HECOEB. 57 

“ I admit, Mr. Vane, tliatyoin* knowledge and judg- 
ment of women’s points are superior to mine. In- 
deed they are said to be unsurpassed.” 

Throwing back his head the broker laughed and 
showed his fine teeth, the greatest charm of his face 
for me. 

“ Vane’s lips were made for kissing,” I thought, 
and wondered if the same idea came to the girl, for 
her face wore its most seductive smile. 

Had I not already realized the animal instinct that 
predominated her nature, the hungry look in her eyes 
would have betrayed it then. 

Albert Vane saw it too, and a smile of triumph 
played around his full, crimson lips. 

The youth and lusciousness of the girl appealed to 
him, as would that of a pretty shop-girl or a modiste’s 
model. What he loves is passion and power over 
women the triumph of his physical nature over theirs. 
The flesh, always the flesh, not the head, nor heart, 
nor soul. 

Heloise will suit Albert Vane. 

I think the broker’s conceit as to his judgment 
influenced mine against following his advice to short 
the stock. I told him to buy on declines. I also 
asked him to buy a hundred sugar. 

“ More dynamite,” he hesitated. 

I insisted, and the sugar was purchased. 

“ The industrials are good enough for me,” I declared 
“ I like the excitement of stocks that are on the 
jump.” 


58 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


“ Indulge another form of excitement. I do not 
wish you to lose money, Lenoir,” Vane said, with a 
dramatic glance at me. 

Heloise caught the look, and her face flushed. 

“ The girl is already in love with the man,” I 
decided. 

To relieve the strain of the situation, I told Vane 
a story of a most proper woman, who that morning 
had said to me that her husband knew only good 
women, such women as he would not hesitate to 
have her receive. I added that I had recently seen 
a sketch of Gibson’s sent by this man to a woman 
who was in the habit of dining with him and wear- 
ing his flowers. A good enough woman, no doubt, 
but the circumstances did not quite justify the 
wife’s faith. 

“ Women are happy only when deceived,” said 
Vane. “ I often marvel at their impatience to ferret 
out the truth regarding their lovers and husbands. 
It makes them miserable.” 

I cited the case of a clever woman who declares 
that she prefers the excitement of unhappiness to the 
stagnation of blind, peaceful faith. 

“Is it this spirit which moves you to select the 
most dangerous stocks on the list for your operations, 
and the most dangerous men for your lovers ? ” the 
broker laughingly asked. 

By a coincidence the card of Solon Maurel was 
brought in to Albert Vane. 

“ This is pertinent to our little moral decision,” 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 59 

Vane laughed, handing me the card. “Shall the 
Frenchman join us ? ” 

“ Certainly,” I replied, my heart giving a great 
bound of delight. 

Why did I flush like a girl with her first lover, as 
the hand of Solon Maurel touched mine and I felt its 
warmth through my glove ? 

I am neither romantic nor susceptible, yet this man’s 
personality intoxicates me. 

His greeting to Heloise lacked the warmth of his 
manner to me. 

Again the contrast between the two men. Albert 
Vane plays with his victims by theatric effect: His 
rdle is to excite jealousy in one, by admiration of the 
other. This is commonplace and incongruous with 
the man possessing genuine power over women. 

Vane, though of nearly equal age with the French- 
man, lacks his and wisdom with women. The 

broker, while possessing quite as wining a personality, 
could not hold women’s fancy as Solon Maurel has 
done in his brilliant, reckless, wandering career. 

It is the deadly charm of fascination which in 
either sex is fatal. 

After arranging to dine at Delmonico’s and go to 
Palmer’s Theatre with Maurel and Vane that even- 
ing, Heloise and I said au revoir and went for a 
stroll in the glorious sunshine up Fifth Avenue, 

Meeting an heiress about to make a brilliant for- 
eign alliance, Heloise commented that she would not 
want to pay his price for a title and ruined estate. 


60 


A JFOMAN WITH A liECOtlD. 


“ No matte]-,” I told the girl ; “ a woman might 
as well pay for a man before marriage as afterward. 
She knows his price tlien ; later, she cannot count 
upon it.” 

I should not instill these cynical ideas into a young 
head, but I have lived in Paris where the grisette 
often divides her earnings with her student lover. 
She has a likelier show of liappiness than the queen 
of cocottes, playing liavoc with a prince’s millions. 

“ American women buy titles, but not lovers,” 
moralized the girl. 

Heloise has much to learn. She must pay for her 
own lessons in life. 

Maurel was brilliant to-night, but hard. Albert 
Vane wliispered to me that the Frenchman had been 
gambling and liad lost heavily. 

His face was colorless, his eyes expressionless, his 
voice weary. 

We sipped Parfait P amour after champagne 
at supper. Maurel held the cordial up to the light 
until its colorings gleamed like fire ; then, resting his 
eyes on mine, he cynically laughed. 

“ Does perfect love exist, except in dreams ? ” he 
wonderingly mused. 

Tlie coldness of his mood cliilled the fever of my 
new-born passion. 

“ There is no real love in the heart of man, save 
for himself,” I answered. 

To Solon Maurel there is but one God — himself. 
Upon the fire he kindles he throws the ice of indif- 


rl WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


61 


ference. This may be part of his method in holding 
a fancy once Avon. 

All, he knows woman Avell; give her a caress to- 
day, a mere sliake of the hand to-morrow. 

What use has tliis Frenchman for me? 

Ever and again comes this question to the mind 
of a Avoman past earliest youth. 

Youth is love’s comedy. Maturity, its melodrama. 
Age, its tragedy. 

When the Avoids “ I love you ” from a man’s lips 
cease to fall on a Avoman’s ears, she has already a 
tragedy in her heart. 

Maurel is a gambler. What hojie can a woman 
have to usurp the SAvay of the SAveet enslaver — 
Chance ? 

Ah ! through his passions Avill I hold him, and tear 
this brazen goddess from her dominion in his heart. 


62 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER XI. 

MONEYBAGS TO THE RESCUE. 

That woman’s tip was wrong. Albert Vane was 
riglit regarding this stock. I believe the real winner 
coppers all information he gets on Wall Street. I 
dare not short the stock, knowing the powerful in- 
terests that have been accumulating it. Insiders of 
the old company are selling. It looks as if all parties 
were getting out. 

I must consult old Moneybags. I will don my 
most becoming frock and go down to his office. A 
better plan would be to get the old W ellington of 
the street to dine with me here. I can influence him 
more over my own deviled almonds and wine than 
in his cheerless office. 

The thin-haired, keen-eyed old chap whose wealth 
has won him first place in society’s ranks likes a 
turn ill Bohemia as well. In an opera-box the man 
looks like a mummy, but with a party of kindred 
souls he really is amusing, with his scandals of the 
upper set. 

Moneybags has great craving, but no love for the 
world into which wealth has given him the password. 
His is the success of gold, not of merit. 


A fyOMAN mr/I A RECORD. 


68 


The women of his set are no more sacred to him 
than is the actress of the latest mesalliance or the 
woman whose favoi’s he purchases. 

Nature gave to this man only brains and acuteness 
to play upon the cupidity of mankind. He will' 
always be a sycophant and follower, not a leader. 

I hold his fancy by my intolerance of his set, and 
gratify his vanity with my compliments of his finan- 
cial skill. 

Moneybags’ town and seashore palaces are monu- 
ments to his success. He is one of the many brazen 
images at whose shrine the world bends its knee. 
Moneybags shall come to me to-night. I will get him 
on the ’phone, and, in shop-girl parlance, “ jolly him 
up a bit.” 

The telephone is quite enough to ruin one’s temper. 
It always is so busy that it suggests the idea of the 
girl at the other end being always idle. Battles with 
the manager over the wire ai-e useless. He sticks to 
his girl. A monopoly is a catastrophe in the business 
world. 

Finally, after the stock had dropped a point, I got 
Moneybags’ number. 

“ Buy like the devil now,” he advised, witb more 
force than civility. 

“ I cannot buy like the devil,” I returned. “ I 
haven’t his power nor yours.” 

Moneybags opened his heart, and agreed to carry 
two hundred shares, giving me the profits and stand- 
ing the loss. 


64 A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 

I ’phoned to Albert Vane. 

“ Any points ? ” Vane questioned. 

I satisfied liiin with the assurance that Moneybags 
was a heavy purchaser. 

“ That man always is bullish and occasionally gets 
left,” Vane returned. 

Moneybags could not dine with me, but he danced 
in before going to the Patriarchs. He explained 
that he must show up there ; and he read me a lec- 
ture on speculation. It was the same old story about 
not playing points, and with practical illustrations. 

I offered the old gentleman a whisky and soda, 
and he took my liaud in his clammy palm and turned 
my rings about on my fingers. 

“ I like you, Lenoir,” he said, fastening upon me 
his twinkling eyes, that remind me of two little 
fiends. “ If you must play this game, I will tell you 
the only cards that will beat it. They are money, 
patience, and pluck. I judge that you have no money 
to lose ; you give too much to your tailor. You are 
too emotional to be patient, but you are plucky.” 

My guest drew nearer till his face was close to 
mine. The thought of Maurel came to me. I 
loathed myself then. I think I despised all tlie 
world while the thin, bloodless lips lingered on mine. 

“Nothing for nothing,” is the creed of man ; and 
Moneybags \von his reward. 


A irOMAIf iriTJJ A RECORD. 


C5 


CHAPTER XII. 

WILL MY HEART BREAK AS WELL? 

More violets from Solon Maurel ! Also a little 
note says lie will call at four o’clock, if I will receive 
him. 

I have cards for two teas and a mmicale to-day. 
These affaii-s bore me, now. I want only Maurel. 
He shall come to me. I will link my life with his, 
for good or for evil ! 

The minister says “ For better, for Avorse.” Isn’t 
it usually for worse ? Wits claim that the woman 
is given away, but the man is sold. This admits of 
reversion. 

Maurel and I will not go in for marriage. We 
could not afford to. It is a luxury for the rich. We 
bluffers of life have no need of fetters. We enjoy 
to-day, and forget on the morrow. It is touch and 
go, with us. We have tlie best of everything, food, 
clothes, and love. Elegance stamps us with superi- 
ority. What we cannot pay for we hang uj) ! 

This life of upper Bohemia, or, as it is termed, “ the 
fringe of society,” is one of vicissitudes, of hours 
grave and gay ; but the worry of the morning is oblit- 
erated by the color and bloom of the night. We 
5 


66 


A \V03£AN IVITH A BECORD. 


wear softest laces and finest gowns. We do not 
follow the women of society, we lead them. 

In an opera-box, every man looks at us, because, 
with fewer jewels to dazzle, we are usually better 
mannered and groomed. 

Men send more flowers to the woman of society. 
To the woman of Bohemia they send more gems. 

I was amused at the experience of a woman who 
posed as a great swell at an uptown hotel last winter, 
wliile her money lasted ; then she took a floor in a 
private house and settled down to a quiet existence. 
A man about town, who was noted for his affairs 
with pretty women, was the constant attendant of 
this dashing blonde during her sojourn at the hotel. 
He is not liberal, and always saves a supper, after 
the theatre, on the plea of indigestion. A coupd was 
at the service of his inamorata for the Play, and a 
victoria for the Park, until her removal to the lodg- 
ing-house suite. After walking to the theatre, one 
evening, the little lady appealed to me to know if 
Mr. Chapin had lost his money. I replied, “ No, but 
you have lost yours.” 

Men of this type spend money to entice women, 
not to hold them. 

The man of heart and honor bestows favors for the 
pleasure it gives the recipient and himself. 

Unfortunately men of this class are seldom met. 

The marriage of a young author and journalist to 
a woman older than himself, but wealthy, gave rise 
to a little discussion as to their future, and the 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


67 


relative power a woman wields over the man whom 
she purchases. 

Little Buttercup, herself a bright writer and one- 
time friend of the man in question, declared that the 
man who accepts even car-fare from a woman, 
places himself under an obligation to her which gives 
her a hold upon him. The acceptance of financial 
favors from a woman may deaden a man’s honor, but 
the chivalric spirit latent in his breast forces him 
to recognize her claim upon him, the little woman 
insisted. 

Little Buttercup is wrong, as Mrs. Lytton, a suf- 
ferer from man’s perfidy, argued. Her experience 
teaches that before incurring financial obligations 
from a woman, a man’s honor and manhood are dead. 
His province is to give, not to accept, favors. The 
sense of obligation must at times oppress him, unless 
he has sunk to the lowest level of degradation. In- 
stead of inspiring gratitude, it leads to hatred of liis 
benefactress. 

The woman who pays for a man’s clothes, his horses, 
jewels, and pleasures has but little chance of his 
fidelity or his respect. 

The more a woman costs a man, the greater is her 
power over him. He loves what he buys, not what 
is given to him ! 

The woman in whose favors a man revels may some 
day have thrown at her the thankless words : “ I Avon 
you too easily.” 

Woman is as true as steel or as false as hell. She 


C8 


A WOMAN WITH A HECOllI). 


loves orshe hates, and heaven help the man who scorns 
her. She sacrifices herself or she slaughters him. 

Woman is spiteful ; but man is cruel ! 

Once weary of a woman or attracted by a ne^’ 
charm or a more flattering tongue, the sweetness of 
the past turns to bitterness in a man’s heart. 

When a woman begins to reproach a man, he is 
already lost to her. Though pride and honor be 
sacrificed for his sake, the forsaken woman must en- 
dure the sting of indifference and see the eclipse of 
hope. 

A man can be held only by his passions or liis 
heart. Where women are concerned he is without 
honor ! 

Mrs. Ly tton, in criticising a man’s lack of fortune 
and seeming devotion at her shrine, very cleverly 
said : “ Well, he at least has enough money to pay 
for his cigarettes and his infidelities.” 

I think Mrs. Lytton scarcely realizes the money 
required for these luxuries ! 

Albert Vane used to declare that he had no heart — 
only nerves. He has passions and nerves. I presume 
Heloise will be duped into believing lie has heart. 
That girl acts strangely of late. She flushes at 
mention of Vane’s name. I believe she has met 
him unknown to me. 

Heloise is the sort of girl for afternoon appoint- 
ments with men in hotel reception-rooms and restau- 
rants. I shall run across her at the Waldorf some 
fine afternoon, seated at a little table, drinking cock- 


A li^OMAJV WIT/r A RECORD. ^ 


69 


tails, with one or two dudes smoking cigarettes at 
her side. 

Albert Vane likes only cigars. He is a walking 
chimney. With quite young girls, like Heloise, lie 
might smoke cigarettes, to create the impression or 
retain the delusion of youth. 

When Vane desires to be especially attractive he 
wears a coat flower. He is approaching the age 
that scorns an affaire with any woman over twenty- 
two. 

Vane desires to unfold the bud, to watch, with 
smiling eye and winning speech, its leaves open be- 
neath the dew of passion’s kiss. He loves to play 
with any feminine thing, as a cat plays with a mouse; 
to twist its throat and wring its heart, before de- 
stroying it. The female cat purrs and scratches. The 
male cat destroys its prey. 

Albert A’^ane will not seek Heloise in marriage. 
His numerous matrimonial engagements have been 
like his stop-orders on stocks, good until cancelled. 

Vane declares that he would rather go to a funeral 
than to a wedding. 

The Dead March in Saul often follows too quickly 
the wedding march from Lohengrin, in life’s fateful 
course. 

Marriage is the beginning of sorrows. Death is 
its ending. 

Maurel will soon be with me. I must put on my 
rose crepe tea-gown, with its cloud of chiffon drapery 
and open, swinging sleeves that bare my arms to the 


70 


A WOMAN WITH A liECOJW, 


shoulder. I know all the arts of dress. It has such 
weight with men. They appreciate detail where 
formerly they caught only the effect. 

I will not breathe a word to Maurel of my brief 
acquaintance witli the little chorus-girl. Let the past 
know no resurrection. 

The secret of success with men is not to recog- 
nize their histories or their weaknesses, but to humor 
their vices ! 

To criticise a man’s faults is to antagonize him ! 

In the old days, when sweeter, purer sentiments 
pervaded my nature, I fancied it well, instead of 
humoring, to try to cure the vices of one’s lover. 
I had aspirations for the place of the little brown 
woman in his life, but the world soon taught me its 
fatal creed of letting a man hug his vices to his heart 
in silence, or of myself absorbing them, to the ex- 
tent of at least good-fellowship. You may criticise 
your enemies — but not your friends. 

A young man usually insists on innocence in 
women ; it is to him a fascinating and not as yet ex- 
ploded theory ; he conjures up sweet visions of the 
little angel who will wipe his brow, and bandage his 
head, and straighten out his clothes after a revel with 
the latest vaudeville celebrity. He returns to “ the 
little brown woman” for repairs, after a skirmish 
with the battery of the scarlet woman’s charms ! 

This type of man idealizes virtue, but follows vice, 
not from 'innate evil, but as a result of association 
with men and women who fire his blood with liquor, 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


71 


aiui drain his manhood with the poison of seductive 
sin. 

Men of raaturer experience, more seared by time 
and folly, sometimes give “ the little brown woman ” 
a permanent situation. I doubt that I ever could 
have acceptably filled this position, and found real 
pleasure in the pressing and cleaning business. 

I must look again at Maurel’s picture. It holds 
me like his eyes. The nature is often revealed in a 
picture more than in the face. The artist sees beneath 
the fleshly mask the secrets of the soul. 

A picture may be the impression of a heart interior. 
It tells in mute, yet forceful power the story of a life. 

I once had a strong instinct against a man con- 
firmed by his portrait. His vices and insincerity 
glared from the canvas and saved me from his 
clutches. 

Neither this picture' of Solon Maurel nor nature’s 
handwriting upon his face can hold me back from 
liira. His love, himself, I want, at any price. I am 
so weary of life without love ! 

Would we had met in the far-away past, before 
our hearts were riddled by fancies and hardened 
by care. We might have loved in the old sweet 
fashion of innocence and trust, and found happiness 
in the old sweet paths ! 

Elise loved this man with her senses ; yet her 
heart broke of longing for him. 

He is the one human thing I crave. Will my 
licnrt be broken, too? 


A H'OJ/vliV WITH A RECOlW. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

A TAKGET FOR MEN. 

Maijrel’s face was haggard, liis eyes dull, his 
voice weary this afternoon. I felt that the reckless 
game he plays had gone against liiin. 

“ Solon, do not gamble all the time ? ” I begged, 
as I bathed his brow with lavender water to relieve 
his headache. 

“ Lenoir, I must gamble. It is my one passion,*’ 
he replied, with flashing e3"es. * 

“ Your one passion ? ” I repeated, reproachfull}% 
slowly kissing his lips and brow. 

Fatigue left his face, and it flushed and warmed, 
while his heart throbbed against mine. 

“ Ah, Lenoir, you are love’s elixir ! ” he murmured ! 
and past and future were forgotten in the bliss of 
tliat hour ! 

Love’s awakening, its realization, its deatli ! These 
three phases represent the piteous tale of love and life. 

The inspiration of Wagner’s mighty love stories 
could have come only to one who had been swayed 
by great passions and purified by great sorrows. The 
awakening of Brunhilde, the dying love-song of Isolde 
are master-poems of the heart. 


A WOMAN WITH A liECORl). 


73 


A cliill crept through my blood midst the fever of 
my lover’s kisses. He satisfies only my physical 
nature ; he fails to reach my heart. 

The world seems changed, the sunshine shadowed, 
the laughter of the throng less gay. The fever of 
excitement runs high in my veins. I have taken a 
potion that benumbs my senses and controls inyAvill. 
I belong no longer to myself ; I am wholly Maurel’s. 

I threw faith in man to the winds long ago ; yet I 
want to believe in /a'm, my one passion. 

I desire from him no gift but his love. j\Iy 
name {Lenoir) has blackened my life; yeti would 
seem white in his eyes. 

Analysis destroys love. The knife of mental dis- 
section should not be plunged into the heart of 
passion. 

I must blind myself to my lover’s faults and try 
to cure his vices. 

Desire burns out with the fierceness of its flame. 
Love of the senses usually merges into regret or de- 
testation. This is the creed of students of love’s 
problem. The stories of love’s fiercest passions, its 
mightiest melodramas, its darkest tragedies contradict 
this belief. 

Solon and 1 may disagree, our pathway may be 
clouded, but only death can part us. 

INI}^ lover is vain, as all men aie. He has used 
women more than loved them. Yet his vanity does 
not equal that of Albert Vane, to whom a dozen 
conquests mean more than one woman’s love. 


74 


A irOJ/AJV WITH A RECORD. 


Is Maurel using me, too, as Vane would do ? Amid 
the raptures of love this pitiful cry wails tlirough 
my heart ! 

jMaurel’s kisses are as fire, his voice as ice. I know 
that from the wreck of his heart-life I get only 
splinters. lie tosses crumbs to me. I throw my life 
at his feet, — I will gather these crumbs and make 
them into a loaf on which I will feed. 

In absence, I weigli my love in the mental scales 
which I toss aside when we meet and our lips touch 
in a soft caress. 

The lips of Maurel woo me witli the fragrance of 
old wines ; the tenderness of his touch sets my heart 
beating. I rule other men ; my new lover dominates 
me ! He asked me to give him an opal ring that I 
chanced to wear. I liesitated, but one look from his 
eyes influenced me to his bidding. 

“ The old superstition has been swept aside by 
modern materialism,” Maurel claimed, witli that 
wretched, hard little laugh he sometimes gives. “ The 
stone is quite a fad now. It may change luck, Lenoir. 
It may be my mascot, as you are, my sweetheart.” 

Maurel got the fiery gem, with its lurid lights, that 
remind me of a restless human soul. It is like 
Maurel’s eyes : now burning with passion, now cold 
with satiety. 

There is enough superstition and romance left amid 
the debris of my faiths to make the opal a thing of 
dread to me. 

“ This is the finest specimen of the Hungarian 


A JFOMAN WITH A RECOIil). 


75 


which I have seen, and the diamonds are perfect,” 
my lover said, measuring its value against its senti- 
ment, as he slipped the gleaming thing upon his 
finger, and, stooping, drew me to his embrace. 

Thus was our love compact sealed. 

I told Solon of old Moneybags’ promise to carry 
stock for me. He smiled, rather quizzically, but 
entered no protest. 

“ You might use the old man to better purpose 
than for a few hundred shares, my dear,” he sug- 
gested. 

A little devil leapt into my heart, and I told Mau- 
rel that old Moneybags had given me the opal for a 
birthday remembrance. 

“ Then it will indeed bring good luck to me,” he 
laughed. “ Anything bought or bestowed by a man 
of Moneybags’ success must win.”' 

Maurel is unfortunate in speculation. He plays 
the pyramid game. He buys on profits. To make or 
to break is the gambler’s spirit. He buys on eighths 
and quarters, up, with no stops on. 

“ Limit your losses, but let your profits run,” is the 
true way to beat the famous game of “ the street.” 

Heloise has just been here to bid me good-night. 
She wants to know why I write so much, late at 
night. 

“I am recording your life and mine,” I said. 

“ I shall furnish good material,” the girl declared. 
“ I am out for a lark ! ” 

Taking lier face between my hands and drawing 


76 


A TF03/^iV JFITH A RECORD. 


her beneath the light of the lamp I looked into her 
eyes. She gazed at me unflinchingly and broke into 
a merry laugh. The girl is all right, as yet. 

“You have met Albert Vane, alone? ” 

“ I will not deceive you, Lenoir. I have met Mr. 
Vane in the afternoon at the Waldorf. We drank 
some wine and had a salad.” 

“ What else happened ? ” 

“ AVe took a stroll up the Avenue. He asked me 
to go to the theatre, some evening this week, and 
" said he would call on me, after three, any day I would 
appoint, when you Avould not be at home. I dare say 
he thinks you might look in my apartment.” 

To my query if he made love to her, Heloise said: 
“ Not more than other men would.” 

Heloise is a target for men. The girl possesses the 
charm of diablerie. She must many early in life. 

“ I think I was born bad,” she declared. “ I enjoy 
risque stories and immoral books.” 

I told her that some day she would meet a man 
who would not spare her, and the likeliest one to yield 
to the temptation which she would force upon him 
would be Albert A^ane. 


A JVOJIAJV iriTU A RECORD. 


77 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“BE MY JVIASCOT, LENOIR.” 

My Wall Street outlook brightens. I have a tip 
to sell sugar. My informant makes no mistake. I 
will go clown to Albert Vane’s office. I dare not 
trust to the telephone in this deal. I shall not let 
Vane know my business. 

Is any man a real friend to a woman ? Is not 
he always her lover or nothing ? 

I am weary, after the excitement of the morning. 
I sold sugar against Vane’s judgment, but my tip 
satisfied me that my position Avas the correct one. 
The stock sky-rocketed up two points, lield steady, 
then reacted and soared again. On each upward 
turn I sold more. At one o’clock the street dropped 
to the situation, and rapidly as it had advanced, the 
stock broke three points. Patience and pluck had 
made one tliousand dollars for me. I played a sure 
winner in the great Wall Sti’eet race. 

Albert Vane complimented my cleverness, while 
we celebrated my victory in champagne. 

A man Avorships at the shrine of a successful 
v/oman, and liolds aloof from one that fails. 

In misfortune, Avonian is a better friend to woman 


78 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


than the man who has enjoyed her favoi’S and been 
the slave of her brigliter hours. 

Vane asked me to let him call to-morrow after- 
noon. I presume he wants to make love to my 
money. I do not think he could feel more than a 
passing infatuation for any woman. I have neither 
time nor desire for an entanglement with this 
man. 

Love and business do not accord. The man of a 
woman’s heart must not handle her dollars. 

Maurel will call to-night. Vane will tell him of 
my success, and Solon will seek me. If I but pos- 
sessed the vanity that once was mine ! I would give 
my heart not to weigh men and find them wanting ! 
Would that I were Heloise, that vapid, gushing, 
reckless creature, who is painting in vivid coloring 
the great canvas of her life ! 

I no longer love the girl. Her velvety touch has 
ceased to soothe me, her rippling laughter no more 
awakens echoes of the heart-music of otlier days. 

Would that Heloise’s mental vision could see the 
pall of the future slowly falling on the brightness of 
the present. 

The girl has the same temperament as Vane. 
Neither nature is great enough to suffer much, 
yet even the lightest heart must know a brief re- 
gret. 

I am singulaily weary to-night. I will drink a 
bit of brandy and light my cigarette, my dainty cig- 
arette, that has so often consoled me. In its bine 


A WOMAN WITH A EECOiiD. 79 

smoke I see the cloud-pictures of iny old, sweet loves. 
I recall the merry past, with its music and flowers, 
its fetes and its follies. It brings back the smiling 
face of my dead love and tlie days that were a dream 
under the sunny skies of France, whenv/e drove and 
danced in the pleasure whirl of Paris. 

We realize what happiness means when it is for- 
ever lost. 

I loved Herbert Lee with the best that was in me. 
I long for Solon Maurel wdth the fiercest and worst 
passions of my nature ! 

I am not happy with him ; yet I cannot exist apart 
from him ! 

I have drunk an opium-drugged love-philter. It 
affects me like the morphia I used to take to deaden 
pain. I gave up tlie wicked stuff before it con- 
trolled my nature. No form of vice has heretofore 
subjected my will, but this passion for Maurel is 
like the opium-habit that kills the soul. 

I must sip again and again the poisoned draught 
of Maurel’s fatal love. Lenoii-, are you mad ? Can- 
not you save yourself ? 

I talked lately witli a little woman for whom the 
world- would have only harsh judgment. She bluffs 
the game of life. Her flashing dark eyes hold no 
tears ; her trained voice betrays no sorrow. For- 
tune’s wheel turned against her. The gorgeousness 
and pomp of her past serve but to shadow tlie hard 
routine of her life now. As she woiks and waits 
for the better time coming, she sobs not, but sings ; 


80 


A )roMAN irini a JiKconn. 


yet the song is like a dirge and hope darkens with 
despair. 

From her toilet table, a man’s pictured face looks 
into hers. The love-light has left his eyes, the old 
tenderness is dead in Ids heart, the woman is all alone 
now with her past. 

“ Do you still love him ? ” I questioned her, in one 
of her cynical hours, when her poor little heart was 
making its hardest effort to be brave. 

“ I love him so well that were his millions lost I 
would work for him,” she said. 

As I read my heart, to-night, I would give all my 
gems rather than lose my new lover from my life. 
The gems recalling the generosit}’’ of the man who 
until now was my life’s one love I would lay at tlie 
feet of him who will be my life’s last love. 

Who sliall judge a woman’s heart or measure the 
gi'eatness of her sacrifices ? 

Even the lowest form of her passion places her 
above the average heartless woman of fashion, whose 
soul lies in lier chiffons and flowers. 

“ Man falls tlirough his passions, woman through 
her affections ! ” a brilliant journalist declared, dur- 
ing one of our erotic conversations. 

I disagreed witli him. The twentieth-century 
woman, lapped in luxury, bathed in wine, breathing 
the incense of flattery and the atmospliere of license, is 
likeliest to be swayed by passion and held by tlie 
affection that is its offspring. 

Passion is a perpetual bond or an eternal separation. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


81 


I like the audacity aud the ambition of this young 
man of the press, with the bonhomie of Bohemia and 
tlie culture of society. 

Ellis Rosseau asked me, the other night, the cause 
of my sweetness to this blonde hoy, as we chatted in 
Little Buttercup’s sitting-room. 

I told him I was only keeping my hand in. I have 
quite a soft spot in my heart for this reckless, restless 
man of the Press, Avho detests tlie work tliat pays for 
his dinners. Would I were rich that I might divide 
my gold with a few of the good comrades of the 
world. Ah, you wretched millionaires, piling up 
your money and your sorrows ; I Avish that you could 
realize, in 3'^our empty lives the hearty pleasure of 
doing good.” 

^ 

My lover has been and gone. M3' mirror reflects a 
new line in my face, a new shadow in my e3'es. 
Maurel was moody and brilliant by turns, to-niglit. 
He kissed me with the fever of passion and pushed 
me from him Avith the lassitude of eiinui. These 
changeful moods enchain 1113^ fancy in a hopeless spell. 

“ Was Vane ever your lover ? ” Maurel questioned, 
as he held my hands and searched my heart Avith those 
basilisk eyes that would crush a lie on my lips. 

“ Are you jealous of Vane ?” I asked, half hop- 
ing an acknowledgment. 

“ No ; I only Avondered if you could resist him. 
To me he is most alluring. With Avomen I should 
imagine liim to l)e a Avinner, always.” 

‘6 


82 


A WOMAN WITH A HECOIil). 


■ The woman who yields to a man’s passion must 
expect to be considered by him vulnerable to others. 
This is the one respect in which man’s vanit}^ does 
not reign supreme. 

The woman who retains her purity wdth her lover 
is immaculate, in his eyes, with all men. 

Between the sweetness of my lover’s kisses, I tasted 
the poison of his bitter heart. This sort of relation 
can give no lasting happiness. 

“ Solon, tell me why you make me happy only to 
make me wretched again ? ” I asked. 

“ Because, Lenoir, I am wretched myself. I am 
the slave of a habit that darkens my life. All hell 
might be paved with my vows to quit gaming, yet I 
go ever on in the feverish hope of winning back 
my lost gold. 

“ Were you always a gambler?” I asked. 

“ It was in my blood, dear,” he replied. “ My 
father blew out his brains at Monte Carlo, after los- 
ing the fortune that should have been mine. I went 
there, a boy of nineteen, with the fire of youth and 
hope in my veins. To-night, after years of success 
and defeat, with gold piled high at my side, until the 
bank shut down on my play, and with poverty hold- 
ing me in its deadly throes, with the luxury and radi- 
ance of one month followed by the gloom of the next, 
I have reached the stage of despair. Be my Mascot, 
Lenoir, woo back sweet fortune to my side. We 
will go together to Paris, the only place to live. You 


A WOMAN With a recoiw. 


83 


shall have the jewels of an empress and dazzle all 
France with your splendor.” 

Maurel’s eyes shone like stars, his lips wooed me 
with their soft caress, his arms clasped me in a vise- 
like hold. In that moment I would have given my 
life for his. 

“ Solon,” I said, “ I won to-day. Take the money 
and try the game, once more. I feel that it will win. 
It is love money. It comes from my heart.” 

I gave my lover a check. I kissed his brow softly, 
with my passion all dead. 

A shadow fell between us ; but we drank in the 
rich, ruby wine of France, to my lover’s success with 
my gold. 


84 


A WOMAJV iriTIJ A RECORD. 


CHAPTER XV. 

HELOISE IS HOPELESS. 

I HAVE a new liold on Maurel. He won three 
thousand dollars last night, and gave me this tur- 
quoise ring to-day. I shall never part with it. The 
stone brings good fortune and pleasure to me. 
Fred Manton’s birthday gift brought me Maurel, 
which means love and happiness. 

We drive at four, this afternoon ; we dine at the 
Waldorf, at seven. Then we will have a box at Ros- 
ter’s. I love a vaudeville. 

Mrs. Willis, that little black-eyed friend, who hates 
me and affects the pose of society, went in a box 
party to Roster’s and found the show too dull. She 
declared she neither heard nor saw anything im- 
proper. 

It is difficult to convince narrow-minded persons 
that the performance at Roster’s is reputable, 
that men take their wives and sweetliearts to this 
vaudeville, and that we have not as yet compassed 
the point of indecency at a music hall, to which a 
woman of any pretence to respectability may go. 

We have not reached the limit of the Alhambra 
or the Empire. Pretty bar-maids do not flirt with 


A WOMAN WITH A liECORI). 85 

our men nor seduce them from our sides. Women 
do not stagger about tlie lobbies, making dates with 
any strange man who may fall beneatli the spell of 
their liaggard charms. 

The vilest American female scarcely equals the 
average London music-hall frequenter or the cocotte 
of the Jardin de Paris. 

Tlie rosebud of society or the married belle gives a 
skirt dance in the Fifth Avenue studio of an artist, 
and the leaders of the smart set entertain their guests 
with the flesh tints and shapely limbs of their cham- 
pion beauties in the poses of living pictures. 

Given time, the world of Bohemia will attain the 
licence of the world of high fashion, whose women 
have set up smoking-rooms, hung with Egyptian 
stuffs and scattered about with little tables loaded 
with smoking paraphernalia. The drawers of these 
tables contain Egyptian cigarettes stamped in golden 
letters with the name and compliments of the liostess, 
Fred Manton sent me five hundred from the Broad- 
way shop that furnishes them to the grande dames of 
the former four liundred, now dwindled, alas, to one 
liundred and fifty, and gradually decreasing, until 
their memory will soon have become but a burlesque. 

Semi-society really shocks me at times. I took 
Heloise calling last week on a lot of people I thought 
might amuse her. I regretted not having left her at 
home. She so readily absorbs evil. At the Savoy 
Ave were shown into Mrs. Lester’s splendid Louis 
XV. drawing-room, to find, amid half a dozen emi- 


86 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


nently proper guests, Mrs. Lester posed on one foot, 
with flushed face and vacant stare. She was obse- 
quious to me and gurgled at Heloise. Attempting 
to present the girl to her other guests, she called her 
by her first name and mentioned me as her dear 
Madame Lenoir. Seeing that our hostess was quite 
exhilarated, I gave Heloise a glance to decline her 
preferred hospitality and hastily beat a retreat from 
the scene, before the woman’s husband and child 
might dawn upon it. 

Thinking this a rare case, I read the girl a lecture 
on the folly of drinking with one’s guests, on 
one’s day at home. Then we drove further up the 
Avenue to the tasteful residence of a most critical 
woman, whose pose is highly moral and intellectual. 
Madame, in jetted gauze and antique jewels, her face 
flashing smiles, sailed in from the furthest room of 
the suite, to welcome us. 

As this woman’s social code is flawless, I marvelled 
that she had for a moment been allured from her 
standpoint in the front drawing-room. Taking us 
by the hand and laughing hysterically she dragged us 
into the punch-room. “We liave struck another 
jag,” I mused, sipping the famous rose punch which 
had made our hostess so vivacious. As several other 
guests sliowed signs of its insinuating effect, we took 
our leave, and I made no comments on society, as 
Heloise and I drove home in the chill, damp dusk. 


A IrOMAJV^ WITH A ItECORl). 


87 . 


We had a beautiful time to-iiight. I was happy 
with my lover, and Heloise seemed utterly under 
the spell of Albert Vane’s good looks and flattering 
tongue. 

As the girl kissed me good-night, just before I 
donned this fleecy robe in which I write, she stuck 
a rose in my breast, and, stooping, kissed my flesh. 

Heloise is dainty and seductive. I marvel that 
Maurel does not love her. Were I a man, my purse 
and my heart would be hers. 

“ You love Solon,” she purred, between her soft 
kisses. “ I am pleased, Lenoir that you do love. 
Passion is the sweetest thing in life, except Mail- 
lard’s chocolates and Ruinai't champagne,” 

Her eyes had the glitter of a tigress, her lips were 
crimson as the roses she wore. Her arms tightened 
about my neck, her kisses rained on my throat and 
shoulders, until, pushing her from me I sent her off 
to bed, without the usual glass of wine and parting 
cigarette. 

Heloise is hopeless 1 


88 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

WOMAN AT THE TAPE. 

It is a mistake to suppose that stock speculation is 
confined to men. A large number of womeu gamble 
in stocks. Some are successful. 

Upper Broadway is lined with branch offices where 
women trade. The dashing manager of one of these 
offices declares that lie does not seek female custom ; 
yet a woman’s order is welcome and she is graciously 
received. The male customers are not pleased at 
her presence. IMen are not desirous that women win 
in any of life’s games. The clever woman does not 
crave woman’s rights ; she is satisfied with man’s. 

This cosy office has a clievitele of young and some- 
wliat showy women who are guided by the judgment 
of the manager. At times he gets rattled with the 
profusion of orders, the rapidity of fluctuations and 
the complaints of his fair clientele. He must be 
equally smooth of brow and suave of speech to the 
boarding-house mistress and to the blonde belle. 
Inke the policeman’s, his life is “not a happy one.” 
The woman dealing in ten shares demands more 
attention than the woman trading in one hundred. 
The former fights to save an eighth commission, 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


89 


while the latter tosses over a stock, regardless of loss, 
when she discerns a soft spot in the market. 

Allured by the glittering signs indicating this 
office, the twentieth century woman wanders within 
and barters her gems, before discovering that she 
has attempted to play a game to which roulette and 
faro are as nothing. 

In one of these fine offices two spirits rule. One 
is blonde, the other is dark. The former is bullish, 
the latter sells stocks always. The blonde is young, 
soft of manner and speech. Hope rules in his breast. 
Life has favored him with success. He lias had no 
dark hours, no truant loves. The bear of the great 
business concern has lost a fortune, and with it hope. 
Following the judgment of either leader, the client 
often loses. 

To this office women flock. All day they watch 
on the big board the record of the manipulations of 
the street. Home is neglected. Fashion takes 
second place. Husbands, cliildren, lovers are for- 
gotten in the pursuit of illusive wealth. 

These places are as Monte Carlo is to France, the 
plague spots of a nation. 

A loser in this place recently declared her inten- 
tion of taking to the church in the end. How eagerly 
we offer God Ihe refuse of our lives ! When earth 
fails and human loves and human hopes are dead, 
we turn to heaven for solace. This phase of human 
nature would indicate that the great unknown must 
hold the potion that gives eternal rest. 


90 


A tVOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


I studied the types in this centre of speculation. 
One woman was gray and thin of hair, liaggard of 
face, wistful of eye. She feverishly watched the 
tape, as though her soul’s salvation hung on the next 
fluctuation. Her story is interesting. Years ago 
she accumulated a fortune through the advice of the 
shrewdest man ever known in commercial or specu- 
lative centres — the man whose axiom was, “ Don’t 
buy what you can’t pay for, nor sell what you haven’t 
got.” 

After this man’s death the woman ran her deals on 
her own judgment, and quickly her newly-acquired 
wealth melted. From ten until three each day, she 
haunts the offices of various brokers ; then she re- 
turns to her clieerless home. 

One morning a finely gowned woman of forty-five 
entered an uptown office and eagerly scanned the 
gossip and watched the stock fluctuations. She 
spoke not, nor smiled at the comments of other cus- 
tomers. Silently she wrote her orders. Not a muscle 
moved in her face not a shadow darkened her eyes, 
as the game went on. I wondered whether or not she 
won. The following morning a sensational daily 
recorded the death of a woman of forty-five, a blonde 
exquisitely dressed, a character known at the races 
and in the up[)er sporting circles of New York. Her 
attempt to keep a boarding-house had failed. She 
then let lodgings to young women living alone. She 
moved from place to place as though pursued by 
the spirit of doom. Her life was a string of adven- 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


91 


tures, a complication of regrets, ending in ruin and 
suicide. She was the woman I had seen at the tape. 
Women usually buy after a big rise and sell on a re- 
action. It requires nerve to buy stoeks at the bottom 
and sell them at the top. The broker wins by cop- 
pering his sheet. He realizes that his customers 
usually are in error. Hence he takes stocks off of 
their hands and builds a snug home and sails in a 
trim little yacht, while his clients live about in spots, 
and take their outings on Coney Island boats. 

The women of the tape are posted on current 
events, and their opinions are most pronounced. 
Occasionally they win large sums, but in the end 
the bank swallows up their profits. 

The saddest and freakiest looking among these fe- 
male speculators have long since been reduced to ten- 
share operators. Their gowns are seedy, their hair 
dishevelled, their youth dead. 

Women who speculate in this way usually have had 
some little career, humble though it be. They are 
not always bad, but simply misguided. The fever of 
Wall Street thins their blood and reduces their flesh 
and burns out all the fire from their hearts. They 
no longer love mankind, but carp upon tlie treachery 
and ingratitude of liuman nature. Instead of sip- 
ping life’s ambrosia, they have tasted its wormwood. 
Their lives are narrow and colorless. They always 
carry their tubs about with them, forgetting that 
could Diogenes have left his, he would no longer liave 
been a cynic. 


92 


A WOMA N WITH A RECOnD. 


With gold for one’s god and the milk of human 
kindness soured by life’s sudden storms, comes the 
tendency to decry human nature. 

Extremes of any emotion or indulgence of any vice 
are followed by reactions and collapse. 

Among the devotees of the street are two women 
of fair fame, once rich and occupying good social 
position. The beginning of their financial downfall 
was friendship with a leader of the street, one promi- 
nent in gieat deals, who has baffled, defeated and 
surmounted fortune several times in his mercurial 
career. 

Lacking the nerve, persistency and phenomenal 
luck of this man, his humble imitators have followed 
his lead as a soldier follows his chief. They have 
dropped out of the line of march, heartsore and 
weary, while the general on his dashing charger has 
ridden on to victory. Some day he will meet his 
Waterloo and sink into the obscurity whence he 
emanated. 

Three years ago these women admirers and follow- 
ers of the cleverest and most daring pool organizer 
of the street plunged into stocks ad libitum. Being 
sisters they bought jointly hundreds of shares and 
lost a fortune in a recent and memorable Wall Street 
smash, precipitated by the collapse of a rotten and 
manipulated securit}*, which paid its dividends from 
its capital, and hurled thousands into ruin and want. 
Higli on the waves- of prosperity ride its leaders, 
now, while the cursing victims are scattered tlirough 


A Jro^fA^r irrr/i a record. 


93 


the land. These two sisters bucked the game until 
it led them from splendid hotels, into side street 
apartments. 

Forever their ciy was stocks ; their infatuation 
was the kaleidoscopic, bewildering maze of Wall 
Street. From five hundred share traders, they dwin- 
dled to one hundred, then to fifty, then to ten. Now 
they sit all the morning in an office with other women 
speculators and back and fill on fractions, with nerve 
gone and confidence destroyed. Tlie tragedy of 
their lives is nearly completed. The curtain will 
soon ring down ! 

In upper Broadway is a place exclusively for ladies, 
with a board, a boy, a ticker and a manageress at 
their service. The boast of tliis place is its legiti- 
macy. Its news flashes direct from the main office 
of a large Wall Street firm. There is also a connec- 
tion with the Consolidated, for trading in fractional 
lots. The lady manager is aufait on Wall Street, 
having made money in deals and keeping au courant 
of the arteries of speculation. Her best judgment is 
freely given, when desired, but not thrust upon cus- 
tomers, to their discomfiture and loss. 

Women of the better class frequent this quiet 
office and often a winning is made by them. The 
woman at the helm, has the head of a dozen men and 
the big heart of an honest woman. 

The most exclusive uptown office is also presided 
over by a woman. The board records tlie changes 
in stocks, as the dial of a clock indicates the hours. 


94 


A WOMAN WITH A ItECORD. 


but no news is to be scanned within this gorgeous 
place. Its motto is silence ; its creed is success. A 
winning is assured those who entrust a margin to the 
somewhat mysterious power behind the throne. 

No sign betrays the place. Access is oidy to the 
initiated. This game is played on private informa- 
tion. Whatever move the magnates of Wall Street 
make, a similar move is made for you. Your money 
is not risked with an individual not responsible, but 
on information so accurate that loss seems impossible. 

This cliarming headquarters of chance, with its soft 
rugs and dainty belongings, its tempting luncheons 
and sparkling wines, allures the favored few into 
roseate dreams of fortune’s fairest blessings. 

Women are natural gamblers as the European gam- 
ing places prove, with their reckless, restless, gayly- 
dressed throngs, comprising the butterflies of pleasure’s 
risque set and the mondaines of the most brilliant 
cities of the world. 

Women, while more nervous and impatient, are 
reall}’- less reckless than men. They accept their fate 
more philosophical!}’', and less frequently blow out 
their brains under the silvery moon, beside the glis- 
tening sea that washes the shores upon which stands 
the greatest gambling palace of the world. 

Defeat and poverty are accepted by tlie women of 
our time with the resignation that in sunshine or in 
storms stamps them, even at their worst, as superior 
to mankind. 


A JVOJ/AN iri'J'JJ A RECORD. 


95 


CHAPTER XVII. 

Lenoir’s mental conflict. 

Maurel sent me a great bunch of violets to-day. 
He will come to me to-night. He always seeks me 
when I win ! 

Why does my passion for this man burn out my 
life? 

The snow that crowns an Alpine summit is not 
colder than his heart, the edelweiss is not harder to 
pluck than the flower of his love. Yet his touch 
scorches my flesh like lava that burns on Vesuvius’s 
fiery bed ! 

I am weary of Life’s battle. It leads but to defeat. 
Heart-worn and brain-tired, when the Great Con- 
queror comes, we silently fold our hands and submit 
to his sway ! 

Ah, Solon Maurel, at once my life’s charm and its 
sorrow, why did you come to me as a blessing and as 
a curse? 

Why did nature give me a heart to drag through 
life’s storms and burn out its fires upon the altar of 
its 'most unhallowed temples? 

Could I have had one cliance to grasp and cling to ! 
I have set up brazen images for gods. I have wan- 


96 


A IVOMAJV WITH A BECOED. 


dered through the world’s pleasure fields and seen its 
daisies droop, its roses die. The perfume has sweet- 
ened my soul, the thorns have pierced my flesh. 

Why is it that some women were born to do good 
and some to do evil ? 

Maurel does not love me ! He does not make me 
happy ! My blood runs cold with the shadow that 
the future casts upon my life. 

I might love a good and honest man. I might be- 
come a true and honest woman, were I given half a 
chance. 

This strange, hypnotic spell that my lover casts 
upon me holds me with the iron grasp of doom. 

In these violets I breathe the fragrance of Maurel’s 
kisses. I feel his passionate caress. The money that 
I win will go to feed his insatiate thirst for gam- 
ing. 

What is love but a dream ; its fulfilment a regret? 
What is success but the pursuit of a shadow ? 

We work, we wait, we hope and die. Ah ! the so- 
lace of love. It is the heart’s mainspring without 
which the machinery is silent. 

Hope is the religion and the salvation of the 
world ! 

Some clever, yet ratlier disappointed women at- 
tempted a revision of the Bible, their criticism being 
that woman lacks prominence in its pages ; that hav- 
ing been formed from the rib of a man, she is not com- 
plete as though created at once and on an equality 
with him ; that Adam was the fatlier of the liuman 


.1 WOMAN WITH A ItECOUB. 


97 


race and Eve was only the woman who bore his sons. 
The woman weak and faltering, listened to the ser- 
pent and tempted Adam in her turn to eat of the for- 
bidden fruit. Had the woman not listened and fallen 
the human race would have known no sin. The 
idyllic charm of Eden would have been eternal. 

The claim is that upon woman’s weak shoulders 
rests the sins of the world. 

These progressive women of the age would give 
to their sex scope and power and recognition beyond 
that of man. They would give us more Magdalens 
and fewer .Tudases, forgetting that the blackest pic- 
ture which the artists of tlie Scriptures painted was 
that of the Lord’s Supper, to which only men sat 
down ; that the deepest treachery which darkens the 
story of the centuries was perpetrated by a man, and 
that the healing balm of love and of hope was ad- 
ministered by the soft hand and the loving heart of 
a woman follower of Christ. 

These carpers and would-be reorganizers of the 
Bible overlook the fact that the greatest liar of all 
history, religious or j^rofane, was Ananias, and that, 
when the body of the Saviour was laid in its tomb, a 
woman wept beside it. 

Though the fatal charm of Cleopatra drove a man 
mad, and the beauty of Helen incited a nation to 
war; though the false counsel of a woman urged 
Macbeth to his bloody deed ; though disaster has 
followed the trail of many of Eve’s fairest daughters ; 
yet tlie most potent influence which sways the world 
7 


m A WOMAN WITH A UECORD. 

and forms the nucleus of its great unwritten tales is 
that of the women of our age. 

To women who are sad and weary let me bear this 
message of hope and of cheer; somewhere beyond 
the silence lie the pleasure-grounds of peace. 

Cease your pitiless little fights. Life is not worth 
a regret, but it merits a hope. 


A IFOMAA' WITH A RECORD. 


99 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

MRS. MALLORY MAKES A SCENE. 

Yesterday, as I strolled along Broadway with 
Maurel, a woman joined ns and “ called him down ” 
for being with me. She was short, stout, with 
no figure, haggard of face, with badly bleached 
hair. 

She was quite fifty-five, not preserved in sugar, 
and utterly a back number. 

The woman’s quick, nervous manner seemed com- 
municated to Maurel, and his white face and collapse 
from his usual nonchalance indicated that the woman 
had a strong hold upon him. She belonged to the 
class of women that delight in scenes. 

“ What right have you to be with this woman ? ” 
she questioned, with a sly, tricky gleam in her 
watery, blue eyes, from which the softness of youth 
had long passed. 

I noticed that she si)oke with a slight brogue and 
showed quite a gold mine in her mouth. Taking in 
the situation and shuddering from contact with the 
underbred creature, I meekly responded that I had 
only the right of an acquaintance. 

“ I think you lie,” she hissed in my ear, 


100 


1 WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


This aroused my combativeness and shifted me to 
the aggressive side of the absurd encounter. 

“ What right have you to control M. Maurel’s 
acquaintance ? ” I asked. 

“ He has been my lover eight years. He wishes 
to marry me. He has followed me all over the world. 
While not desiring the bond of marriage, my life is 
given up to him. This is my claim to the man 
whom you are trying to allure from me.” 

I told her that the price she liad paid preempted 
the property for her ; and with a cold glance at 
Maurel and smile at the woman, I sent Maurel off 
with his antiquated mistress. 

“ Another drop of wormwood in life’s cup ! ” I 
thouglit, as I jumped into a passing cab and drove 
to McCreery’s. 

“ Maurel sliall pay for this gown,” I decided, as I 
selected and was fitted to the latest Parisian model, 
a do til of mushroom color, with a sable collar. I 
also ordered a smart cape of black velvet lined with 
cream satin and trimmed with chinchilla. 

This encounter will save my “ money,” I cheerfully 
mused, with the hard philosophy we learn in the 
high school of the world. 

Years ago I would have come home and wept, now 
I come home and order a bird and small bottle of 
Ruin art to my rooms. 

There was an opera air on my lips, but no music 
in my heart, as Ileloise entered my apartment and 
smilingly exhibited an enamelled four-leafed clover 


.1 WOMAN WI TH A R ECO HD. 


101 


with diamond centre, which Albert Vane had just 
sent to her, “ for luck,” he declared. 

“Heloise,” I said, “you have luck already in 
youth and loveliness. Do not cross this good fortune 
Avith the clouds which passion brings. Be light of 
lieart by being pure.” 

The girl put her arms about my neck and kissed 
my brow. 

“ Were you happy, Lenoir, in the long ago ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Heloise, you put a hard question to me. I really 
do not think I ever knew Avhat that word means. 
My life was shadowed at the outset with an unfortu- 
nate marriage to one much older than myself. He 
was both libertine and cynic, and delighted in show- 
ing me the Avickedness Avhich the mask of pleasure 
often hides. Unable to appreciate purity, he sought 
to destroy it. He combined the taste of a sybarite 
Avith the habits of a debaucli^. He Avas not satis- 
fied to imagine the beauties of the human form ; he 
longed to possess them in premeditated abandonment 
to pleasure. He dragged his angel from its pedestal 
and dashed it in pieces against tlie coarseness of his 
voluptuous Avorld. 

“ To a young Avoman trained in this school, breath- 
ing the poison of this atmosphere, happinesss could 
be only a brief ideal. 

“ This man’s vices Avere so costly that but little 
of liis Avealth remained for me. We li\'ed apart, I 
formed neAV associations and sought forgetfulness of 


102 


A IVOilAN WITH A RECOIiD. 


my marriage bonds, in the gayest life of Europe’s 
capitals. From Petersburg to the Rivieia I dashed, 
with a train of admirers in my wake. 

“After varied fancies I met an American, Her- 
bert Lee, with whom I had an affair of years’ dura- 
tion. He died of a fever at Rome. My grief for 
him softened my heart and made me more tolerant of 
the world. 

“ Since Herbert’s death I have not been swayed 
by fancies. I have known men at their best and at 
their worst, and have found that only a few are 
worthy of a woman’s love. Fidelity, one must not 
look for; men are born without morals; women may 
have their moral sense destroyed by circumstances 
and the atmosphere of licence. Again I warn you, 
Heloise, to guard your virtue as you would a sensi- 
tive plant. It is the one gem, when lost, that gold 
cannot replace.” 

The girl knelt at my side and gazed wistfully in 
my face. A tear glistened in her eye and she softly 
sighed. Possibly Heloise may not be so hopeless as 
I had feared. 

“ Did your husband die? ” she asked. 

I told her that after a prolonged debauch he fell 
dead of apoplexy in the drawing-room of a noted 
woman of the half world, and the earth to me then 
seemed full of light and harmony and peace. 

After Heloise left me I again mused on the strange 
meeting with tlie woman who claimed control of my 
lover’s life. Maurel could not have been attracted 


A WOMAN WITH A JiECORD. 


103 


to this declassi female by other than mercenary mo- 
tives. With his figure and marvellous fascinations, 
even his gambling craze should not have led him 
down to such a depth. 

***** 

Another day has passed, a long, hopeless day, with 
no message from my lover. I could not trade in 
Stocks, my interest in fashion flagged. I was cross 
and quite intolerant of Heloise. I snubbed Albert 
Vane when he called on me after the close of the 
market. Vane’s feeble efforts to make love to me 
met Avith no response. I recognize in him only a 
good-looking, conceited man to whom all women are 
prey for his desires. I questioned Vane regarding 
the strange looking woman I had met. He had 
heard of the association, but had not seen the Avoman. 

“ She has given Maurel much trouble, and he 
would gladly throAV her over,” Vane informed me. 
* * * * * 

Maurel came to me unheralded this evening. He 
knocked at the door of my rooms, and I received him 
Avith an indifferent smile. He brought no violets, 
but a flag of truce in the form of a little jewelled hat- 
pin. 

My gown and cape were in the boxes Avhich liacl 
just come from McCreery’s. I opened them and sliook 
out the folds of the cloth gown, and slipping in the 
adjoining room quickly put it on, and returning, 
smiled into my loA'er’s face. 


104 


A WOMAN WiTff A RECORD. 


He must have marked the contrast between the 
stubby form of Ids antique friend and the curves of 
my slender figure, whicli a luxurious life of indul- 
gence has not, tliank heaven, developed into emhon. 
point. • 

After turning me about and complimenting the fit 
and style of my gown, Maurel suddenly inquired its 
cost. 

“ To me, nothing. To you, one hundred and fifty 
dollars. Clotlies are cheap now ! Tire cape, too, I 
selected as another souvenir from you, a charming 
little atonement for the annoyance that old woman 
gave me. 

Maurel’s face flushed. Tlie cold light I disliked 
came in his eyes, yet he smiled. 

“I am pleased with your selection. I like you in 
fur. Warmth and luxury are your native element. 
To-morrow I will send you the check.” 

Colder grew his eyes, harder his voice. Did he 
intend to leave me forever? Had he made a better 
deal with the haggard woman of his wretched 
past ? 

The earth seemed slipping from beneath my feet. 
Life looked so hopeless without his love. I was not 
using my finest libbons to drive Maurel. 

In abandonment I tore off the gown and flung it 
from me. Kneeling beside him, in the soft laces that 
framed my white shoulders, I pressed my warm, 
quivering flesh against his heart. 

“ Solon, you are mine, always ! ” T cried. “ Woman 


A WOMAN WITU A RECORD. 


105 


nor God shall part us ! My gold, ray geras, ray life 
are yours ! ” 

lie moved not nor yet spoke, but the fire slowly 
kindled in his amber e3"es. Stooping, he kissed me 
once and again, then gently pushed me from him. 

Rising to his feet he took my hands in his cool, 
firm grasp and tried to read my face. 

“Woman or devil, which are you? They are much 
the same ! Do 3'ou love or despise me ? Are you 
playing a game with me or have I won, at last, a 
true and loyal heart ? ” 

Winding his arms about me he drew me to his em- 
brace, and the memory of the wretched hours of j^es- 
terday vanished like a hideous dream. 

Later, robed in a pink peignoir and quite ready 
for the good-night visit of TIeloise, my lover and I 
chatted, over our champagne and cigarettes about the 
“ freak,” as I jestingly named her, who had made 
that queer little circus on the street. 

Maurel explained that it was an begun years 

back when he had been unsuccessful. Knowing that 
the woman would inherit quite a fortune and already 
had considerable money, he yielded to her passion 
for him and permitted her to accompany or to follow 
him from Paris to Monaco, as the desire for play ab- 
sorbed him or the exigencies of his finances required. 

The woman was of Irish birth, but educated in 
England, and had resided many years in France. 
“ Her name is Mrs. Mallory. She admits to forty- 
three, but really is fifty years of age. She is full of 


106 


A WOMAN WITH A NECORD. 


Irisli humor and not a bad sort, except when crazed 
with jealousy of me,” Maurel said. 

She had given him some valuable jewels, had 
staked him at play, and in return demanded as much 
of his attention as she dared to claim. 

His story went on to state that the woman had 
often made scenes and had given him so much trouble 
that he rued the day when first he permitted himself to 
fall into her toils. While believing her true to him 
until their relations had become more or less platonic, 
he writhed at times under the thraldom of the finan- 
cial favors he had accepted from her. 

“We will return her money and cancel these old 
obligations,” I declared. 

With the sophistry that man ever employs in his 
dealings with woman, Maurel assured me that no 
relations but those of old friendship now existed 
between Mrs. Mallory and himself. 

“The woman is quite alone in the world. She 
cares only for me, and is satisfied to have me visit 
her, rather than that our relations entirely cease,” 
Maurel declared. 

To convince me of his position regarding the 
woman, Maurel said that she had some months ago 
taken a fine house uptown, with the view of making 
a home for both herself and him. Her chaorrin at 

O 

his non-acceptance of this situation had aroused the 
woman’s jealousy and suspicion. She had put detec- 
tives on his track and followed him along the streets. 
Catching her at these tricks, the woman often amused 


A irOMAN mm A JiECOltb. 


107 


him with a recital of their false scents and absurd 
reports. Regarding this phase of her passion for 
him, Maurel and the woman quarrelled most bitterly. 

“ She is like a rubber-ball,” he laughed. “ Punch 
her, sit on her and she rebounds again.” 

“ Great heaven ! ” I thought, as my lover’s good- 
night kisses lingered on my lips. “ What better am 
I than this woman Avho has loved Maurel and bribed 
his passion with her gifts?” 

I cannot find it in my heart to hate her. I can 
only give her the pity I accord all women who are 
forgotten, neglected and wearied of by man. 


108 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE. 

Maurel lost again at play. I gave him more 
money. I think I would give him my soul. Have 
I sunk to the level of the poor old relic who haunts 
his path ? 

Maurel has tried to keep away from this woman, 
but she entreats him to go to her. The other day 
she drove to his chambers and during his absence got 
possession of his little pet dog and took it with 
her. This was a trick to allure Maurel again to her 
side. 

Mrs. Mallory might learn wisdom from the story of 
a celebrity of Bohemia, in London, who has held the 
fancy of a titled man for ten years. Without beauty 
or youth, but with the charm of a sunny nature and 
the accessories of great wealth, this woman appeals to 
the chivalry and the materialism of Count de Caux. 
Her carriage stands for liours in front of his chambers, 
awaiting the pleasure of the man wlio is a little tin 
god to madame. Her splendid and liistorical count}' 
seat near London, is at the service of the Count and 
his followers. No matter what his follies, vices, in- 
fidelities be, this woman calmly sliuts her eyes and 


A JVO.VAN WITH A RECOnn. 


109 


receives him with a smile. Beautifully gowned and 
jewelled she presides over dinner-parties of his selec- 
tion ; and the pleasure of Count de Caux is to Mrs. 
Phillips an unwritten and honored law. 

Mrs. Mallory has much to learn in the art of sub- 
jugating and holding the fancy of man. 

Dine him, smile on him and amuse him, and the 
chances are ten to one that you can control his 
time. 

Old Moneybags called to-day, and brought me an 
enamelled bracelet that he picked up in a curio shop. 
He knows my fad for antiques. Moneybags has the 
intolerable air of newness. His Avealth is so eternally 
thrust upon me that this bagatelle, with its dainty 
finish of Eastern art, is to me a most pleasing relief 
from the glitter of his diamonds, 

Wliat a queen I could be as this man’s wife ! 

Tlie woman who bore his name probably little 
dreamt, when a girl in her Southern home, that she 
would some time be quoted in society journals as a 
leader of its most important functions. 

Ilecently I met in old Moneybags’ uptOAvn office, 
an elderly man, well known about town, and a blonde 
woman long ago married to a cliaracter of the Press, 
one of our cleverest humorists. The husband tags on, 
at times, Avhen the Avonian and her elderly lover do a 
theatre or a reception or take a little outing. This 
Mormon istic arrangement is one of society’s curious 
features. 

Brigham Young once pointed out this difference 


no 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


between the Polygamist and the Christian. “ We 
take care of our women. You neglect yours,” he 
said. 

This afternoon I had a call from a beautiful French 
woman of the rare tj'pe to whose radiant face white 
hair lends a charm. Mrs. Deane, another guest, 
raved over the woman’s beauty and decided tliat she 
looked like the portrait of a famed beauty of the 
court of Louis XV. 

“ How could I accomplish this hair ? ” Mrs. Deane 
despairingly asked. 

“ Get a sorrow,” I suggested. 

“ I have many,” she sighed, “ but they whiten 
neither my hair nor my heart.” 

“ Then fall in love with a young man,” I urged. 

Heloise has a little friend whom we jestingly call 
“ the young woman with Ideas.” This girl has both 
heart and sympathy. She is new to metropolitan life. 
The young woman has aspirations for the operatic 
stage. During a recent visit to tlie office of a manager, 
she met and fell into conversation with a girl who 
had failed — the usual type. Tliis particular girl had 
escaped from the hopeless limitations of a Western 
home to the more hopeless allurements of a theatrical 
career. When money, clothes and hope were ex- 
hausted, she vainly craved a chance to let the world 
see what she didn’t know of vocal art. 

The heart of Heloise’s girl friend was deeply stirred 
by the pathetic tale. She sent clothes to the girl 
and made for her a little purse to defray pressing 


A UTrll A liECOnD. 


Ill 


needs and keep her from the temptations of this un- 
holy town. 

“ The girl who deserts her home for the stage de- 
serves to fail,” we decided. 

“ No matter,” our young enthusiast declared; “ if 
a little aid will keep one girl off the streets of New 
York, I shall have my reward.” The more we know 
of earth, the nearer we get to heaven. 

Our daily life is full of unwritten romances, and it 
is Avell when they emanate from the tender heart of 
youth. 

Would that Heloise were like this friend of hers ; 
would that I could hold her back from the future 
she faces ! 

I am restive as a spirit of evil to-night. I want 
Maurel. Life is colorless without his smile. I sym- 
pathize with the woman who came to me on a queer 
errand to-day. She has several histories, but at pres- 
ent is in the throes of an entanglement with a man 
unworthy of her affection. 

His lapses in English annoy me, his sprees dis- 
gust me, his cupidity frets me ; but his kisses atone 
for all his short-comings ! Shall I marry and reform 
him ? ” 

“ No,” T said. “ Reform him if you will, but keep 
him as a lover. Marriage with a man like this would 
be fatal.” 

• What false gods women worship I 


112 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. ' 


CHAPTER XX. 
passion’s eoyal spell. , 

Mes. Mallory continues her enpionage of Maurel. 
She employs detectives and wearies herself following 
him on the street. 

Maurel played me false the other day. We parted 
after a stroll on the Avenue, Maurel declaring that 
he must keep an appointment with a man at six 
o’clock. I suspected tliat he was deceiving me and 
decided to focus my doubts by going to a certain 
restaurant which he frequents. 

Telephoning Albert Vane to meet me at six, on a 
side street, near this restaurant, I awaited develop- 
ments. Promptly at six Vane arrived, and we seated 
ourselves in the restaurant and ordered dinner. 
Later, Maurel, with two ladies and another man, 
gayly dashed into the place, and took seats near by. 
IMaurel’s face was turned from me, and Ids attention 
Avas engaged with the rather sliady-looking woman 
who accompanied him. Albert Vane looked at the 
quartette and smiled. 

“ I warned you against Maurel,” lie said. “ You 
are too clever and too good a woman to fall beneath 
this man’s influence.” 


A irOiMAN iriT/I A BECORD. 


113 


“ Maurel is nothing to me. I am too conver- 
sant with men to be affected by any of the sex,” I 
laughed. 

“Ah, Lenoir,” the broker deprecatiiigly said, “yon 
combine, with the ability of a man, the soft, tender 
heart of a woman. The world has not brushed all 
the bloom from your life, and with this woman’s 
heart you love Maurel.” 

“ Granting that I do, then what ? ” 

“You will learn to despise yourself and hate him.” 

“Albert, it is not for you to turn philanthropist 
or preacher, at this stage of the game,” I cynically 
decided. 

“ Would that I could have won your love ! ” the 
dashing broker soliloquized, as we drained our glasses 
and smiled across the table. 

I laughed in his face, and told him that love be- 
tween two natures like ours would be a little comedy 
indeed. 

“ You are the froth of life’s wine. Your part is 
that of leading juvenile. Don’t attempt a heavier 
rCle,” I urged Mr. Vane. “ Do you love Heloise?” 
I asked, after a silence. 

“ I adore beauty in all women,” he said, cleverly 
shirking the question “ Why do you ask this, 
Lenoir ? ” leaning toward me, and smiling. 

I responded that I feared the girl was becoming 
too fond of him. 

Vane laughed. “ That girl has no heart. Wliy 
bother your prett}-^ liead with her little affairs? ” 

8 


114 


A ]VOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


“ Because I still have enough of the angel in me 
to want to keep the devil from dominating another 
woman’s life.” 

Just then Mrs. Mallory trudged into the restaurant 
with a tall, dark man, whom she had impressed into 
her service. They seated themselves at a table near 
Maurel’s party, and the color faded from liis face. 
Suddenly he turned and gave me a long glance of 
mingled satisfaction and scorn. 

“ You are my jealous slave : you got this woman 
here,” it meant. 

At that moment I could have put a dagger into 
my lover’s heart. 

Mrs. Mallory watched Maurel, with a greenish 
glitter in her eyes, wliile she chatted furiously with 
her escort. With all her vulgarit}^ Mrs. Mallory 
has a heart which Maurel is hurting. 

Maurel’s party evidently hastened with their din- 
ner. They shortly arose from the table, and Mi’s. 
Mallory prepared to follow them. 

Leaving Maurel to the tender clutches of his old 
friend, Albert Vane and I continued our dinner, and 
later, looked in at The Olympia — Do we grow more 
artistic or more vulgar? I moralized during the 
show. Is it witli us the finest asceticism or the gross- 
est materialism? Nature had full play among the 
ancient Greeks and Romans. A woman’s virtue was 
not measured by the length of her skirts. The most 
suggestive dancing is done in a trailing frock. 

This age is moved by electricity. The steam from 


A WOMA N WITH A RECORD. 


115 


the kettle which inspired the power that whirls us 
over the plains will soon be superseded by the elec- 
tric spark that will flash us through the world. 

Whether or not the age be better, it is faster. Its 
progress cannot be stayed. Its possibilities are 
limitless. 

We rush ever on, we know not to what. We strain 
body and soul in the mad race for achievement. To 
do something, love something and be something 
should be the aim of life. Do we return in other 
conditions to go over it all or do we sink at last into 
the eternal Nirvana? 

From the silence no whisper floats. We toil and 
wait. 

It was midnight last night, when Maurel sought 
me, with hatred in his glance. 

“ What right had you to put that woman on my 
track ? ” he questioned. 

“ The right of one to whom you had lied and 
had wronged,” I replied. 

“ What injustice to you was it for me to join 
friends at dinner ? Is my life subject to your wliims ? 
Am I to have no friends, no amusements aside from 
you ? ” 

“ You are talking as a woman might ; as a man 
always does when disturbed,” I declared. “ Men 
are but children grown up. What did the Mal- 
lory do ?” I continued. “ Something vulgar, of 
course.” 

“ Yes. She made a similar nasty scene to the one 


116 


A WOMA N WITH A RECORD. 


she made with you. The woman is quite intoler- 
able.” 

“ Once you held a different opinion. The woman 
is the same ; ^ou have changed. You have out- 
grown Mrs. Mallory.” 

“ What would you have me do with this woman ? ” 
Maurel questioned. 

“ Give her up. Tell her the simple truth. Drive 
the knife into her heart at once. Tell her that she be- 
longs to your past, which is dead. It is a man’s pro- 
vince to crush woman’s love. Better that than the 
slow deception of false hope. By the way,” I con- 
tinued, “ I want to show you a picture of yourself 
taken in the past, possibly before the reign of Mrs. 
Mallory. You did not ruin her., I am sure. Did you 
ruin the mother of Rosette ? Her child was yours. 
Rosette’s face was the reflection of your own. I saw 
Elise die. I closed the eyes of her child. Is it 
strange, Solon Maurel, that even the god of chance 
deserts you at times ? ” 

“ Angel or devil I have called you, Lenoir. To 
me you seem to-night an avenging spirit from 
the regions of hell. Since you know the worst of 
my life, know also the best. I loved Elise. Had it 
not been for the will of my father and the inexorable 
laws of France, I would have made lier my wife. 
Though a woman of the theatre, she was good and 
true to me. She gave me the honest love that few 
women of society ever experience. I was called 
away on business, I intended to return and make 


A IFOMAjV with a RECOBI). 


117 


what meagre atonement I might for tlie Avoman’s 
fidelity, and also to provide for our child. I went 
back, alas, too late, to learn that death had ended the 
sweetest episode of my career. Judge me not too 
hai-shly, Lenoir. I have paid the penalty of all my 
sins, and you are the one link which binds me to a 
life that I have outraged and desecrated.” 

Forgetting the blonde jille dejoie^ forgetting the 
withered woman whose accursed gold had bound my 
lover to her chariot wheels, I wound my aims about 
his neck and in his kisses sipped the sweetness of 
passion’s royal spell. 


118 


A rVOJfAiV 11777/ A hecoru. 


CHAPTER XXL 

AN INTERVIEW WITH MRS. MALLORY. 

Mrs. Mallory’s card came up to-day wliile I 
was finisliing my toilet. The woman wishes to sub- 
ject me to the high lights of the morning, was my 
mental conclusion. She seemed ill at ease and 
looked more haggard still, as she bustled into my 
sitting-room. 

Giving me a distrustful glance, my visitor dashed 
at once into the subject nearest lier heart. 

“ I hear that Solon Maurel is trying to trick you 
into believing that he loves you ; he is playing with 
you the game he plays with all women for whom he 
has use,” she said, in her harsh voice that jarred upon 
my nerves as the clang and clash of a cable-car does. 

“ Have a smoke and a drink,” I suggested, with a 
smile. “Let me make you a Martinni and try a 
Nestor. I am not addicted to cocktails, they spoil 
the complexion, but I will gladly join you in a toast 
to our absent friend : may his conquests never cease.” 

Mrs. Mallory drank her cocktail, but declined the 
cigarette. Her keen eyes spied the inscription on 
my gold case, “ To L. from S. M.” 

“ Ah, he gives you things,” she exclaimed. “ He 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


119 


must liave won money, of late. Maui’el is not gener- 
ous.” 

I ex[)lained that the cigarette case was a mere 
bagatelle he sent me one day following a dinner in 
my rooms, which had pleased his fancy. 

“ Were other women present? ” my visitor asked. 

“ Yes,” I laughed ; “ among them was a girl of the 
siren type named Heloise. M. Maurel admires her 
gi-eatly.” 

“ Is she rich ? ” Mrs. Mallory gasped. 

I replied that Pleloise had little beside looks, and 
the hope of a good time in the world that is to her a 
great playground, full of soft, grassy spots and radi- 
ant with flowers. 

“ The grass will wither and the flowei-s fade be- 
neath the blight of that man’s influence,” his old 
friend mused, with a touch of regret in her tone. 

I assured her that the girl would not be affected 
by the Frenchman’s charms, as I feared what little 
heart she had was given to a man perhaps less 
worthy of it. 

“No man could be more unworthy than Solon 
Maurel. His heart has long since become petrified,” 
said Mrs. Mallory. 

“You must be the judge, my good lady,” I acqui- 
esced. “ You consider that you have a first mortgage 
upon him, I have heard.” 

“ I do not know whether you may call my claim a 
first, second or tliird moi-tgage,” the woman sneered. 
“ Most men ai-e mortgaged for more than their value. 


120 


A H OMAN jriTM A RECORD. 


after tlie first one is satisfied, usually but little re- 
mains for other unfortunate investors.” 

“ The thing which gives us pleasure, too often 
also gives us pain,” I half sighed. “Knowing all 
their follies, vices, deceptions, and sins, it does seem 
a bit odd that we women continue to regild our 
gods.” 

A chord in the nature of Mrs. Mallory touched my 
heart. I think I liave less jealousy than most of my 
sex. I regret, rather than triuniph, over the failure of 
another woman to hold a man’s fancy. My chivalric 
spirit inclines me to pity a predecessor, at least when 
I fear no rivalry. 

“ Had you ever seen those women who were with 
Maurel at Delmonico’s the other evening ? ” my 
visitor questioned. I assured her that they were 
strangers to me. 

“None of his associates are unknown to me,” she 
declared. “I have followed him often, and have 
broken him up with several women. I really deserved 
their gratitude. Maurel is a most worthless and 
dangerous man.” 

“ May I ask why you desire to continue your 
acquaintance and friendship with him?” I ques- 
tioned. 

“ Only from the tie of old associations,” she replied. 
“ My life was linked so long with his, that to sever 
the bond now would seem like obliterating many 
happy events, and forgetting much pleasure of the 
past.” 


A fVOMAiV ir/77/ A RECORD. 


121 


“ Has not the man brought more unhappiness tlian 
joy into your life ? ” I persisted, with apparent rude- 
ness. 

“ A man of Maurel’s type causes suffering to any 
woman who cares for him,” she said. 

I felt a bit of moisture in my eye, and I arose to 
mix another cocktail for Mrs. Mallory. 

After dashing it off, she said, in a harsher tone, 
“ You are a great fool to waste your time on Solon 
Maurel. He will spend your money, and break your 
heart, if you have one. He has the iron will and 
magnetism that mould women to his fancy. He 
made me what I am. Be careful that he does not 
make you like me.’’' 

The woman drew her glittering, beaded wrap about 
her shoulders, and laughing a hard, reckless laugh, 
arose to leave. 

Taking the picture of Maurel from a drawer of 
my writing-desk, I handed it to her. She eagerly 
grasped it. 

“Was this also one of Maurel’s presents?” the 
woman mockingly questioned. 

“ Like the original it has a history, and came to 
me by accident, as Maurel himself did. Slip it out 
of tlie frame and read the love-legend written there,” 
I brutally suggested. 

“ To Elise, witli my deathless love.” 

“ The devil ! ” Mrs. Mallory exclaimed, with a glit- 
ter in her eye, that portended harm to Maurel. 

I had never seen such an expression of hatred and 


V22 A n'OMAN WITH A EECORD. 

revenge in a woman’s face ; it made me shiver with 
regret that I had shown her the picture. 

“ How long liave you had this sweet souvenir of 
this especial liaison of Maurel’s ?” she gas2)ed, tossing 
olf her wrap and leaning heavily on the table. 

I related tlie stoiy of Elise and her dead child, but 
I spared her Maurel’s confession of love for the 
woman. 

“ ‘ With his deathless love ! ’ His deathless lies, lie 
should have written,” Mrs. Mallory sneered. “Solon 
has been true only to himself, but some day his luck 
will turn and even the devil will desert him. It 
was to warn you against Maurel that I sought you 
to-day. You will call me jealous, maybe I am. You 
have a future apart from him. Maurel must not 
desert me. I say he must not. You comprehend my 
meaning, madame ? I thank you for showing me the 
picture ; and now good-bye.” 

My visitor rustled her silken garments out of the 
room, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the termina- 
tion of our interview. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


123 


CHAPTER XXII. 

AN EVENING IN BOHEMIA, 

Quite a week has passed since I liave had time to 
write. I preferred letting Mrs Mallory relate the 
details of her visit to me, rather than bore Maurel 
with them myself. Long ago I discovered that my 
r61e is to entertain men. I thought that nothing 
relating to Mrs. Mallory would amuse Maurel. She 
wearies him so. 

Men lack tact and therefore claim ingenuousness. 
Maurel mentioned to me the visit of his old adorer. 
“ She does not hate yow, Lenoir,” he declared. “ I 
realize that you charmed her, as you do all who meet 
you. Mrs. Mallory went to warn you against me. 
Her jealousy drove her to this. Would that I could 
blot her memory from my life ! ” 

“ Where did you see her ? ” I asked. 

“ She sent a message that she was ill, and entreated 
jue to go to her. The memory of old friendship and 
past kindness induced me to respond in person to her 
note. The woman really ivas ill. She had worked 
herself up into the belief that she was dying, and 
she made a will in my favoi-.” 

“ It was onl}' a trick to win back your attention 


124 


A W03IAIf WITH A RECORD. 


and regain her hold over you. She thinks you for 
sale to the highest bidder. A woman who once 
lends herself to this horrible traffic in human flesh 
never abandons it,” I declared. 

“ Possibly you imagine that I care more for your 
paltry dollars than for your own sweet self, Lenoir,” 
my lover musingly said. “ But you misjudge me, 
as the future will prove. I would rather give to than 
receive from you.” 

“ For me, there is only the present ; the past is 
dead, the future is yet unborn,” I sighed. 

With a sudden transition of mood, I suggested to 
Maurel that we call for Mrs. Caton, and go to a Bo- 
hemian dinner. I had a fancy for the light wit and 
wine, and sparkle of Bohemia, “ That borderland 
where quips and jests serve sauce piquant to frugal 
dinners ; where weary saints their halos lay to rest, 
content to pose the while as sinners.” 

Rosseau called, just then, and I asked him to join 
our little party. 

“ Lenoir,” he laughed. “ I am ennui to-night, and 
came to you for the remedy. A glimj)se of you 
works a magical cure, you always look ready to say 
such delightfully improper things.” 

“ Usually I have just said them,” I retorted. I 
went on to tell them of an afternoon drive with Mrs. 
Steele. 

“ Were you driving open or closed ? ” asked 
Maurel. 

“ Oh, in the brougham, with the windows shut. I 


A IVOMAJV W/TII .1 RECORD. 


125 


wonder why that woman exeliules air from her apart- 
ments and equipage? It would give to her faee the 
bloom which no cosmetic could.” 

“ Don’t you know that a mummy would drop in 
pieces were it exposed to the air,” Rosseau com- 
mented, with a quizzical smile. He told us how he 
llattered Mrs. Lynn, the otlier night, by telling her 
that he remembered with pleasure meeting her mother 
in Mrs. Steele’s salon, lately. “ No,” Mrs. Lyjin 
smiled. “ / am the mother, it was my daughter you 
met.” 

I told Rosseau that I had been to Mrs. Cummings’ 
Saturday luncheon-party with its mob of well-dressed 
Immanity, its orchestrian music, and its display of 
antique furnishings, that suggested to an English 
guest a comparison with the faded grandeur of War- 
wick Castle. The statel}^ beauty of the young Count- 
ess of Warwick did not dazzle the eye in pictured 
splendor, the ancestry of ages was missing amid 
domestic portraits. The rooms are a curious mSlange 
of the old and the new, while the crowd that streamed 
through them was distinctly the latter. 

“Were the hostess’ lovers all present?” the in- 
corrigible Rosseau asked. 

“ Only three,” I laughed. Mrs. Cummings grows 
careful ; she has hopes of bringing out her daughter 
in the near future. The girl will have at least the 
prestige of wealth. 

“I recently heard that a droll little figure, well 
known about town, declined to enter Mrs. Cummings’ 


12G 


A irojfAy irirn .1 record. 


drawing-room, that day, on the plea of dislike for 
one of the guests.” 

“In my wanderings through the salons of notabili- 
ties, and of Bohemians, on both sides of the water, I 
have met many queer people, but none so queer as 
this young woman,” he gasped, catching a glimpse 
of the dark-eyed, loud-voiced girl, who hung against 
the heavy brocaded portiere which revealed between 
its folds the giddy throng within. 

“ What are your objections to the young lady ? Is 
it her manners or her morals ? the latter must be cor- 
rect ; the hostess goes in for contrast in her guests, 
as in her gowning,” a wag more cleverly than civilly 
remarked. 

“ It is her manners, the little man declared. 

“ Oh, they may be mended more easily than morals,” 
continued the wag. “ Morals, like mended china, are 
likely to crumble to pieces again. Planners are sub- 
ject to permanent repairs.” 

“ Apropos of this,” I laughed, pinning my violets 
amid the chiffon of my corsage, near 1113’- throat, that 
their fragrance might sweeten my speech and my 
heart — “ I shocked Mrs. Delano, the other night by 
saying that the spot of wine on 1113^ pretty crepe gown 
was quite immaterial, so long as I brought home 1113'- 
character clean.” 

It was the Lewis’ Sunday evening at home, with 
a lot of interesting people, culled from Bohemia’s 
brightest wits and lightest hearts, where music and 


A WOMAN WITH A NECORD. 


127 


song ruled tlie hour, and good cheer appealed to both 
palate and brain. 

The hostess, once the most noted beauty of the 
stage, and her daughter, scarce less lovely, entertained 
with open hand, and gracious charm. Mrs. Lewis is 
a wit as well as a beauty, and cleverly diverts sarcasm 
into repartee. Having lived a dozen lives, she has 
simmered down into complete resignation of her own 
past conquests, and delights in those of her daughter. 

“ Select a card,” a popular and facetious actor 
asked Mrs. Lewis, as he attempted a card trick. 
“ One that represents me,” he said, sub rosa. 

“ I have it, the knave of hearts,” his smiling hos- 
tess decided. 

“ I will select for you the queen of hearts,” was 
the gallant rejoinder. 

Compliment among American men is so fast be- 
coming a lost art, that even its most insincere ring 
falls pleasantly on the ear. 

“ Where is your latest male acquisition ? ” Mrs. 
Lewis jokingly asked a pretty little soubrette. 

“ Taking a vacation, I liave his twin with me to- 
night,” the actress replied. 

Mrs. Lewis explained that her friend of the foot- 
lights ’ jestingly terms her husband and her lover 
the “ Heavenly Twins.” They pull well together 
in double harness, and sometimes she drives them 
single. 

Rousseau told us that seeing a diamond cross-pin 
on the snowy breast of a noted man about town, one 


1-28 


A tro.i/J.V 1177’// A TiECOET). 


night at the theatre, he asked a wit why Ben Haiiowe 
wore his cross in public ? 

“ Because his best girl is just getting married.” 

“ Lucrative situation ? ” Rosseau inquired. 

“ Well, rather ; she will have a solid support, as her 
fiance turns the scales at over two hundred pounds.” 

“ Dear me, a man should rejoice to get his girl’s 
bills paid, in these times,” my lover remarked, with a 
sarcastic smile. 

There are.moments when I could crush the life out 
of Maurel, as I would crush a serpent ! 

“ Are we ready to adjourn to Bohemia ? ” Maurel 
asked, gayly pinning in his coat a buttonhole of 
violets, from my table. 

Maurel softens sarcasm with cajoleries, and 
smothers wounds in flowers. 

I think this art is the keynote to his success with 
women. 

“ Bohemia, in New York, usually implies only noise 
and poor dinners,” Rosseau carped. “■ In London, it 
signifies culture and the magic charm of a coterie into 
which the password is talent.” 

We stopped for Mrs. Caton and adjourned to a little 
restaurant, with ap[)ointments of Delft blue and 
white, the soft, artistic harmony extending through 
walls, hangings and china. 

“ It pleases me greatly. I adore the all-over effect. 
Contrast jars on my nerves,” Rosseau decided, in his 
slow and somewhat solemn tone. 

“ I am not a bit blue to-night, Rosseau,” Mrs. Caton 


A WOMAN WIT// A RECORD. 


129 


declared. I fear tlie contrast may affect your color 
nerves.” 

“ You are dainty as Delft and brilliant as Dresden ; 
you are a complete harmony, and fit any surround- 
ings,” Rosseau declared, with the cliarm of speech 
he has acquired in foreign drawing-rooms. 

Mrs. Caton lighted a cigarette and beamed on 
Rosseau. I do not smoke in public, reserving this 
privilege for tlie companionship of my guests at home, 
or for my own distraction when alone. 

I do not oppose the habit in other women, but it 
does not seem to suit me among strangers. 

A fancy of mine is not to let habits merge into 
vices ; although criticised for these notions, I think I 
command more attention from men by checking my 
appetite, at least in public places. 

A woman must control herself, that she may rule 
men ! 

A well-known man about town lounged into the 
little Bohemian den, with a look of superiority to the 
kindred spirits assembled therein. The d<^bris of the 
upper world, the world of society, seemed to cling to 
his garments. 

Being a bit under the influence of wine his mood 
and manner were somewhat aggressive. 

“ T think only a few really respectable women come 
here,” he declared, with a conceited smirk on his 
faded, blonde face. 

“This must be your reason for frequenting the 
place,” I retaliated. 

9 


130 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOUD. 


“ Of course ^ou are not included in my criticism. 

I should always defend ^ou, anywhere,” he said, in a 
feeble attempt at apology. 

“You could not defend me,” I replied. Defence 
implies error ; the only demand I make of my friends 
is silence.” 

This man’s craving for notoriety distresses me. He 
is thrown over by society, yet not quite accepted by 
Bohemia. We class women of this type as belong- 
ing to the half-world ; such men have no defined status. 

This reminds me of a remark a young and caustic 
editor made concerning the woman’s page of his news- 
paper. “ There is no excuse for it. I think it is read 
only in the Provinces. Why not as well have a man’s 
page?” 

“ It would likely be too full,” I commented. 
“ However, we may attempt this some day. A man’s 
page would teem with gossip of the clubs, the turf 
and the sporting world.” 

“ This is concentrated in the page devoted to sports, 
in all our dailies,” said Maurel. 

“ Quite so,” I acquiesced ; “ but I would like to see 
a page in each Sunday edition, devoted exclusively 
to gossip for men ; they are quite as fond of it as wo- 
men are accredited with being. Most of the scandals 
which startle society emanate from men’s clubs. A 
spark from a cigarette sometimes kindles a great 
flame, and a word from the lips of a heedless man 
often ignites a fire of gossip which destroys a woman’s 
reputation.” 


A WOMAN WITH A EECOED. 


131 


Into the dainty headquarters of Boliemia swept the 
incongruous throngs of artists, actors, and men of 
the Press. Fresh from their labors of the brush, the 
stage, and tlie pen, they came to pass the evening 
hours in laughter and song. 

Introductions are unnecessary within this circle ; 
your neighbor for the nonce is your friend. The man 
that serves soup at the liead of a table at once es- 
tablishes a bond of union between the other occupants 
of the board. The man that dresses the salad is 
voted a comrade by his companions When a festive 
spirit more quickly than tlie others absorbs his bot- 
tle of claret, a neighbor pushes his own towards him. 
No bond is more easily forged than tliat which binds 
people of the peculiar temperament, which constitutes 
Bohemianism. This quality is innate, and can but 
rarely be acquired. A millionaire may toss aside the 
conventionalities of the broader world of wealth, and 
wander into a Bohemian crowd, but he must have its 
instincts within his breast. Champagne corks may 
pop, but red wine is the stuff which colors the cheeks, 
loosens the tongue and shai-pens the wits of the 
habitues of la Boheme. 

Ahern and Lucas of the Globe, joined our party, 
and across the table sat Adair and his clever wife, for 
whom the unconventionality of the scene is a ceaseless 
delight. 

There was a lull in the laughter, to watch Adair 
play the castanets, with which he recalled his old life 
in Spain. Glasses were refilled and drained, while 


1B2 


A n^OMAJV IriTII A BECOBA 


young Lucas gave his cleverest dialect recitation, 
and his chum imitated the costermonger songs of 
Chevalier. 

Lips too full for utterance, smiled in supreme satis- 
faction, while handsome Charlie De Vere sang his 
sweetest love-song, and Mabel Joy gave snatches from 
the comic operas in which she used to sing herself 
into the fancy of the gilded youth. 

There are blurs even on the brightness of Bohemia. 
A man worn and seedy strolled into tlie place and 
was recognized as a one-time operatic star, with a 
voice that the angels might envy. Now cracked with 
time, and ruined by dissipation, the strains that flooded 
an opera-house with melody, could bring only a tear 
to the eyes of his listeners. 

The ball of time unravels its threads and breaks 
them, and human hearts, and hopes, and lives, are 
caught in the snarl of a pitiless fatality. The wrecks 
of genius are saddest wrecks of all ! 

Maurel soon wearied of the Bohemian assemblage. 
He prefers the better-dressed throng of the Waldorf, 
or the associates of his sporting world. Solon has not 
the instincts of Bohemia. Only tlie restless atmos- 
phere of the gamester appeals to him. 

Russeau, having lived the life of the artist, inclines 
to the freedom and fellowship of Bohemianism. Mrs. 
Caton is to the manner born, and her wit is never 
brighter than when amid these kindred souls. I 
checked her flow of spirits and stopped her stories, 
lest she be mistaken for a woman of a class to which she 


A )VO.VAN WITH A liECORl). 


133 


does not belong. Jolin Medill joined us at table, 
and soon monopolized Mrs. Caton. His pose is that 
of excessive interest in new women, I do not mean 
“ the new woman,” but any new attraction in woman- 
kind. Mrs. Caton was quite a novelty to him, indeed 
I might say she was a revelation. 

John Medill interests me by his peculiar contra- 
dictions. The strength of his face belies the weak- 
ness of his nature. His two natures, the spiritual 
and the material, struggle inccssantl}'. 

Medill works hard, and deserves a high place in the 
world of letters. Could he shake at once, and forever, 
the dust of Bohemia from his feet, he would win it. 

I overheard Mrs. Caton putting to Medill the 
question as to what economy means ? His reply was : 
“It means doing without something one really wants, 
and afterwards getting something one doesn’t want.” 

It struck me that this same definition might apply 
to Bohemianism. It means eating a crust, with a 
smile, and expending a dollar for a needless pleasure. 
It means a hole in a pocket, that no thread may mend. 
It means a nature which hopes ever, and realizes but 
rarely. It means boon companionship for the night, 
and regret in the morning. Yet always it indicates 
laughter and song, and jolly cheer. 

John Medill is a true Bohemian ; witli the instincts 
of his craft he deserted Mrs. Caton for a couple of 
tawdry girls, with roses in their hats, and cigarettes 
between tlieir ruby lips. One girl sang in a music 
hall, and the other posed as an artist’s model. Each 


134 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


had all the vices of women older in sin, yet their ruddy 
charm of youth attracted the jaded fancy of John 
Medill. 

Such women are young without youth ; they are 
vicious without apology ; they drag the brain and the 
soul out of men like John Medill, and enchain their 
lives in the fetters of materialism. ^ “ Having had our 
fancy tickled, we must now indulge our palates,” 
Maurel suggested. 

Following his lead, we rounded out the evening 
amid the brilliancy of the winter garden at the 
Waldorf, where we were joined by Fred Manton in a 
petit souper^ with Fred’s favorite wine. 


^ WOMAN WITH A RECOBJJ. 


135 


CHAPTER XXIIL 

CAUGHT IN THE SPIDER’s WEB. 

“ Saint ” looked me up tliis morning to exhibit 
her smart new gown, and to give me the latest mots. 
She had been a guest at a dinner of twenty-four covers 
the preceding evening. I could not refrain from 
asking how many uncovers there were. 

“Eleven,” the girl quickly rejoined. “/ do not 
pose, socially, for the altogether.” 

I told “ Saint ” that I shocked a friend from Chicago, 
in the theatre lately, by my comments on the hostess 
of the “ eleven uncovers.” The lady drew my atten- 
tion to a box in which was seated the handsome 
woman in question, with her husband and three other 
men. “ She always has three or four men besides 
her husband,” my critical friend declared. 

“ She is in great luck,” I replied. “ Many women 
cannot get even the husband.” 

“ Women of the Windy City not only get husbands, 
it seems to me, but get rid of them,” was “ Saint’s ” 
criticism. 

“ It is often easier to get rid of these appendages 
than to get them,” I declared. 

This recalled a conversation I recently had with a 


136 


A WOMAN WITH A liECORD. 


bachelor friend of sixty well-spent winters. To my 
question as to the cause of his escape from marriage, 
he acknowledged that he could not get a wife. 

“ You should have taken a maid or a widow,” I 
laughed. “■ Possibly you have devoted too much 
time to other men’s wives to get one of your own.” 

The jolly old gentleman went on to tell me that 
he often noted the career of a newspaper, with similar 
interest to that of some of his married friends ; both 
are sinking-funds, with the hope of better returns 
in the future. 

To-day I met by accident, oiTuck, a man well up in 
Wall Street deals, who kindlj'- gave me the tip to 
buy Tennessee Coal & Iron, that ignis-fatum of the 
Street. I told General Drew that I had lost money 
in the stock, when the bond syndicate unloaded its 
holdings, and the pool in Tennessee had to follow 
suit. On the General’s assuranee of success by care- 
fully noting the movements of the stock, I again 
decided to venture into the whirlpool. I thought 
it better not to confide in Moneybags, but to go it 
alone. 

I drove to the uptown office of Bull & Bear, to 
see Albert • Vane, after the market closed, when he 
would be at liberty to look up my margin, that I 
might order as much stock bought as it would enable 
me to carry. 

The front office was closed, but a voice floated 
to me over the transom; it sounded like that of 
Heloise, but its ring was liard and cold, as she 


A IVOMAN WITH A EECOHD. 


137 


laughed in reckless defiance. Albert Vane’s laughter 
mingled with hers, but their voices clashed like dis- 
cordant music. 

The broker answered my tap on the door of the 
private office, and flushed Avitli surprise at seeing 
me standing on the threshold of his sanctum of 
pleasure. 

Heloise was lolling back in an easy-chair, nibbling 
caramels. Her feet swung in careless abandon, and 
her big plumed hat was a bit awry above her pretty 
flushed face. It Avas evident that she had been hav- 
ing a little celebration Avith her insinuating lover. 

“ Are you speculating, Heloise ? ” I queried. 

“ Yes ; but not in stocks. I Avas Avondering Avhat 
brought you here at this hour.” 

I told her that I came there to get a statement of 
my account, and to giA'e Mr. Vane an order for the 
morning. I asked her if she could give so satis- 
factory an explanation of her visit. 

“ I never explain,” the girl insolently rejoined. 
“ Explanation spoils imagination ; yours is most 
vivid alwa3's ; it gives color to your suspicions and 
biases your judgment.” 

“ This quality of mine Avere unnecessary in jmur 
case,” I retorted. “ Your habits and life furnish the 
singular facts Avhich discount fiction.” 

“ Come, ladies, do not have a sparring match of 
Avords in my den,” Vane laughed. “ Miss Neville, join 
me in a toast to our mutual friend ; may her margin, 
like her beauty, never diminisli.” 


138 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOBD. 


After they had drank the toast I declined the wine 
Vane offered me, on the plea that it was bad form to 
drink in a business office. 

“Not after business hours,” Albert smilingly said. 
“ But a truce to pleasure, if you will. Let us go 
over your statement, while Heloise amuses herself, 
in the front room, with Broadway’s passing show.” 

“ You wish to get rid of me,” the girl sulkily 
said. “ Lenoir is jealous of me. Her refusal of wine 
is a rebuke to me ; she teaches me vices, then scolds 
me for practicing tliem.” 

The girl’s ingratitude and injustice blinded me to 
her charm of youth and beauty, and prompted me to 
tell her that my self-complaisance permitted me to 
acknowledge no jealousy, except for a formidable 
rival, even in the case of a man for whom I might 
care. 

Albert Vane’s white teeth glittered beneath his 
dark moustache, as he dashed off a glass of wine, and 
handed one to the girl. 

Forgetting my impatience, I went over to her side, 
and gently taking the glass from her hand, I smoothed 
back the fluffy mass of hair and straightened her hat 
above it. . 

Slowly pulling herself out of the chair and scat- 
tering the bon-bons on the floor, Heloise wandered 
off into the front room, where she threw herself down 
on a big leather lounge. 

“ Come, let us get at your account,” the broker 
suggested, with a shrug of his shoulders. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


139 


That shrug decided me to give another broker my 
commission in the morning on the block of T. C. & I., 
and cost Albert Vane quite a neat little sum. 

Some men can be punished through their hearts, 
others through their pockets ; Albert Vane is of the 
latter class. 

Turning sharply upon him, I said: “You have 
done a devil’s work to-day, and merit the frown ’of 
heaven, which should fall on all such men as you.” 

Catching my meaning, he replied. “Don’t in- 
dulge heroics, Lenoir, the girl is all right.” 

“ Possibly she is, from your standpoint, but not 
from mine. Men measure women by what they are, 
not by what they should be, and Heloise is far from 
being all right,” I scornfully replied. 

A brain-wave swept my fancy back to my own un- 
happy past, and from it shone the sceptre of my dead 
innocence and charm. 

Leaving the back office, I went to Heloise and 
aroused her from the slumber into which she was 
falling. She drowsily got up and smiled at her bright 
reflection in the mirror, as she clasped her fur-trimmed 
cape about her throat and tied a white veil over her 
face, still flushed with the dissipation of the day. 

Albert Vane handed us into the carriage, and we 
drove to Mrs. Caton’s. 

Experience lias taught me that strategic metliods 
succeed with women as with men, oftener than criti- 
cism of their errors does. I thought it wise to round 
out Heloise’s afternoon with the repartee and good 


140 


A WOMAN wrrri a record. 


clieer which we were sure to find in Mrs. Caton’s 
cosy flat. , 

I declined her proffered hospitality in the spark- 
ling form of wine, but accepted a cup of fragrant 
Russian tea. 

“ Lenoir is about to take the Gold Cure,” Heloise 
jokingly said. “She will drink just before getting 
a jab of bi-chloride in her veins.” 

Mrs. Caton took the cue that Heloise had been drink- 
ing sufficiently for the afternoon, and was in the 
humor to ventilate her wit. 

“ Did you attend Mrs. Delano’s reception, or tea 
and talk, on Saturday afternoon ? ” Mrs. Caton asked. 

“ Lenoir went ; I am not fond of antiques,” the 
girl laughed, with the insolence that youth offers to 
age. “ What era does Mrs. Delano represent, what is 
her date ? ” 

“ W omen of fashion have no date, my dear,” I 
rebukingly said. 

“ They have dates,” the girl rejoined. “ I have 
heard them making them in hallways at receptions,” 
they often have a date, as well. How droll it would 
be to see Mrs. Delano taking herself to pieces on go- 
ing to bed, sans teeth, sans hair, sans rouge, sans every- 
thing but figure, she does not remove that, I believe. 
It was God’s greatest compliment to her, and 
she has preserved its charm. She goes in for repairs 
at the beginning of each season and comes out freshly 
painted,” Heloise giggled, and suggested that it would 
be funny if Mrs. Delano would give a birthday party, 


A JFOMA]^ WITH A UECORD. 141 

witli a cake in the centre of tlie table, stuck Avith the 
number of candles corresponding to lier age. What 
a big cake it would take ! 

“ Not nearly so big a one as Mrs. Steele would need,” 
I suggested. By the way the dear old lady does not 
approve of bicycling for women. She despises and 
distrusts the twentieth-century woman, the coming 
woman, as she calls her. I shocked lier greatly by as- 
serting that I am the woman who has already arrived. 

Mrs. Steele declares that the new woman has ceased 
to be feminine enough to inspire love, and has not 
become masculine enougli to make love. The old lady 
preserves the daintiness and charm of extreme fem- 
ininity amid the rusli and worry of social life. 

Mrs. Caton repeated to us a remark of Mrs. Dela- 
no’s, to the effect tliat slie has quite ceased introduc- 
ing her friends to one another, because she loses them. 

Mrs. Delano is a social pliilosopher. 

What an opportunity offers for a novelist to throw 
the X rays of genius upon the heart of society ; to 
word-paint it as a splendid nude ; to scrape the veneer 
from its surfaee, and tear the spangles from its glitter- 
ing robes. 

Has society a heart? Yes; amid \t& frou-frou and 
follies, the candles flicker, the flowers droop, and 
hearts ache and hearts break as surely on Murray Hill 
as in the squalor of the Bowery. 


142 


A n oMAA’ inni a itEcoub. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE VERDICT AGAINST ALBERT VANE. 

I WAS having quite a little circus this afternoon with 
some artists, singers, and social fragments at Claire 
Raymond’s musicah^ when Claire’s husband came in. 

These days of his wife’s are nightmares to Eddie 
Raymond, lie always comes home late and scowls 
at the guests. Eddie is not a bad sort out of society. 
He permits Claire to run up bills. Some husbands 
wince at giving even this privilege; moreover, Eddie 
does not grumble at long credit for these bills, but 
he is intolerant of his wife’s social aspirations. 

“ I do not see much of you on the Avenue of late,” 
he said to me. “ What are your haunts ? ” 

“ I go to the Bowery to avoid my friends,” I 
laughed. 

“ I heard that Madame Vaillant was writing a novel, 
and I wondered if we would all go in it,” pretty Mrs. 
Tilden smilingly interposed. 

“ That is in my line ; let me bring it out,” a young 
Publisher suggested. 

“ You may,” I returned, “ for quite a consideration.” 

“ I would like to make you the heroine of a novel 
and write the story of your life ; all the pages would 


A irOMAiY fVITH A RECORD. 


143 


be seasoned with red pepper,” the young man con- 
tinued. 

“ You could not make me a heroine ; I would be 
only a leading lady. Heroines have ceased to exist, 
even in novels,” I replied. 

It amuses me to meet the same men at all tlie af- 
ternoon teas or receptions which I attend; they seem 
like a claque at the theatre — always on hand to ap- 
plaud the performance. 

Some of these men are brokers, some are artists, 
while a few are actors. The two latter receive most 
attention. The artists give charming studio teas and 
musicales, which the actors attend. 

Mr. Vaughn, a clever artist in oils, announced his 
intention of having two daj^s at home, because his set 
was too large to admit in one day. 

A bright woman tried to ascertain from him which 
type would be represented on each of these days. 

“ I shall have the best music and recitations on the 
first day, as more })rofessionals will favor my studio 
with their gifted presence,” Mr. Vaughn informed her. 

“ Put me down for that day,” she decided. 

Young Vaughn’s studio musicales are interesting, 
lie attracts genuine talent, and is lionestly liked by 
his friends. Percy Vaughn comes from the fair 
land of the Soutli, whose men idealize women, and 
treasure the traditions of virtue amid its burlesque 
in the salons of a more rapid northern land. 

It is disastrous for a woman to indulge an in- 
trigue with a Southern man, to whom tliere are only 


144 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


two classes — good women and evil ones. He pays 
lioinage to the one, and amuses himself with the 
other; no middle ground exists for him. His mother 
and sisters represent the real women of the world ; 
the other class are mere dolls to decorate with gems. 

Could I instill this truth into the heart of Heloise 
regarding all men my work with her would be easier. 

The girl attempted some of Mrs. Caton’s risque 
stories, to Percy Vaughn at his 7mi8icale, and fancied 
that he was pleased because he smiled his slow, lan- 
guid smile. 

She was callous to my frown, and persisted in her 
chatter. 

“ Dear me, he paints women without much clothes,” 
she argued. 

“ Quite right, Heloise,” I acquiesced ; “ hut he does 
not marry his models. Mr. Vaughn distinguishes art 
from vulgarity — only a refined nature is capable of 
this.” 

Albert Vane called on me to-night, and began to 
comment on Heloise. I was frank with him regard- 
ing the girl. 

“ You have no love for her,” I declared. “ You 
have not even a passion. Your self-love is flattered 
by Heloise’s beauty and apparent fancy for you. 
You liave no intention of marrying her.” 

“ W ould you care for me to do this ? ” Vane asked, 
with a more serious expression than I deemed him 
capable of. 

“ I think not,” I replied. “ I undertook in the 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


145 


beginning of our strange friendship to steer tliis girl 
into a safer port than your love or your life offers. 
The world has not yet withered her roses as it has 
mine. A pet fancy, possibly a fallacy of mine, was 
that I might pi-eserve the exquisite charm of inno- 
cence in Heloise, and be the medium of happiness 
rather than of sorrow to her. My observations in 
your office destroyed tliis illusion. I prefer now that 
slie drift with the tide of circumstance into tlie har- 
bor of success lather than to float on shallow water, 
allured by the flickering and unsteady light of your 
love. Your fancy, like the will-o’-the-wisp leads over 
marshes into dark depths beyond.” 

“ You do not flatter me, Lenoir,” Vane gasped, 
his face whitening beneatli my scrutiny. 

“ I have learnt that trutli is more potent than 
flattery with men like you,” I returned. “ Flattery 
is the choicest weapon for our foes. Truth is the 
dull blade with which we fence in friendship.” 

If Albert Vane were only playing a little game 
with me to further entice Heloise, or could he by 
chance develop a genuine emotion, I liave decided 
that he and Heloise shall not enact the comedy of 
marriage. 
lO 


146 


A WOAIAN WITH A RECORD. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

WOMEN, WINE, AND WIT. 

I MADE SO large a profit on my Tennessee Coal and 
Iron deal, that I decided to celebrate my success 
in a little dinner party, comprising IMrs. Caton, Mrs. 
Fulton from Chicago, Heloise, Percy Vaughn, Mau- 
rel. Count D’Arville and Fred Manton. 

Heloise urged that Albert Vane be asked instead 
of Fred Manton, but my indignation against the 
broker was too great and too recent for me to spoil 
my evening Avith his presence. 

I am endeavoring to win Heloise from Vane, to 
cure her fancy by presenting new men to her, and 
surrounding her with a more brilliant atmosphere 
than that in Avhich Vane flourishes. 

“What flowers shall you use at dinner ? ” asked 
Heloise. “ My dress must harmonize with them.” 

I told her that I had ordered lilies, and would wear 
jet-spangled mousseline — a smart contrast to my 
flowers. 

“ Lenoir, you surprise me,” the girl gasped. “ How 
can you so defy luck ; don’t you know that lilies 
are fatal, and are suggestive of avoc? People of 
the South are superstitious about all varieties of 


A irOiVJy II i 277 A RECORD. 


147 


tlie lily — they will not have them around their 
homes.” 

I told her that the Calla lily is emblematic of the 
joys of Easter, and this was my reason for selecting 
it to adorn and perfume my dinner-table. 

“ You grow semi-religious,” the girl mockingly de- 
clared. 

“No, Ileloise,” I returned. “ I grow fonder of all 
things pure and fragiant. If I am fanciful, it is that 
I be not disillusionized by contact with coarse fabrics 
and vulgarians. In my life, as in my perfumes, I 
prefer the essence to the extract; a drop of this be- 
hind my ear is better than a dozen drops of extract 
on m}^ handkerchief, I can work only in an atmos- 
phere heavy and rich and seductive with incense and 
pastilles. In worship, as in secular surroundings, I 
love pomp and color. When the sun blazes above, 
and the earth smiles beneath its beams, I love life, 
with its glory of nature. When music throbs through 
a church, and candles burn, and censers swing, I 
worship the invisible essence of life, which we call 
God.” 

“ Lenoir, you should love a better man than 
Solon M.iurel,” Heloise said, nestling close to my 
side. 

“ The artistic temperament of Maurel appeals to 
me. He differs so much from most men, who are 
only walking models for tlieir tailors,” I replied. 

In truth my fancy for the Erenchman stultifies my 
old creeds of love. Each day I realize more full}" his 


148 


A W03IAN WITU A RECORD. 


sefishness, and sink lower in my own regard for haying 
loved him. 

True, honest love, exalts the nature. . A passion 
that degrades one’s self, even mentally, should be 
deplored and eliminated. 

We can free our senses from the thralldom of 
human passion, as surely as we can free our souls from 
the fetters of exploded faiths. 

Had ail}" other interest in life enticed me, I would 
not have yielded my heart to my lover’s subtle and 
uncertain sway. 

The flame from my rose candles touched my lilies 
at dinner, wliich led Mrs. Caton to declare that 
lilies, like virtue, should not be scorched. 

A rosy hue suffused Heloise’s face at Mrs. Caton’s 
moralism. 

Under the influence of the right man the girl might 
develop into a loving and honest woman. I shall 
not cease to regret having let her meet Albert Vane. 

The right man is a rarer find for a woman than a 
gem like the Koh-i-noor would be.’ Possibly we do not 
recognize or appreciate tlie right man when he crosses 
our path ; the wrong man is too often more alluring. 

We grasp the great luscious roses of life, and pass 
by the little modest flowei', half hidden in its bed of 
leaves ; yet the rose sooner droops and dies in the 
gas-liglit glare than the forget-me-not and violet do. 

We pay fabulous sums for exotics, and cri\sh the 
flowers of the field under our heel. We worship art 
and neglect nature. ‘ We pay deai-ly for human 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOUD. 


149 


exotics, and learn only in sorrow and in deatli tlie 
greater value of liunian blossoms that twine about 
our hearts and bloom in the sunshine of our love. 

.Mrs. Caton was more risque than usual at dinner. 
I observed Percy Vaughn wince under the fire of her 
wit and reckless repartee ; yet Vaughn is familiar with 
tlie Cafe Cliantants^ and the Quartier Latin of Paris, 
and has indulged in no end of larks at Vienna and 
at Buda-Pesth. 

“ Did you notice,” Mrs. Caton questioned, “ that 
Sara Bernhardt as Iseyl seduced every man in the 
cast ? She concealed depravity beneath so langorous 
a charm that we actually forgave her the seduction. 
She is one of the few actresses who can sin decentl3^” 

“ Sara is more wonderful than the Cathode rays,” I 
exclaimed, with the enthusiasm I always feel for the 
insinuating Frenchwoman. She looks directly into 
an emotion, and photograplis it before our senses. 
We not only feel it, we see it. I really believe that 
Sara differs from other women in that she has thirty- 
eight points. Worth decided that most women have 
thirt3’--six, and each point must be considered in a 
stud^' of them for a toilet. The nineteenth century 
developed many marvels, but none more wonderful 
than this versatile, mercurial and many-sided actress. 

“Do you thiidc her greater than Duse?” Mrs. 
Fulton asked across the table, where I fancied her 
quite wrapped up in Fred Manton, who was seated 
l)etween Ileloise and herself. 

I told her that I considei’ed Bernhardt more force- 


150 


A U'OMAjV with a liECOHD. 


ful and fiery tliaii the Italian actress, whose method 
and calmness may be more convincing. ‘‘We study 
Duse, we absorb Sara,” I said. “ The one woman 
touches our hearts, the other dazzles our senses. 
We live with her, in the swim and swish of emotion, 
she affects the Ijrain like absinthe ; the art of the 
other actress cools and steadies the nerves, and is 
masterful in that it reaches the better part of our 
nature.” 

“ Sara’s arms are so bad,” Mrs. Caton laughed. 

“ Bernhardt is the one imperfect woman who seems 
perfect,” I contended, “ and as she is not a skirt dancer 
like Loie Fuller, tlie length of her arms does not in- 
terfere with the charm of her poses or her acting.” 

“You mean that La Loie dances entirel}’' with her 
arms ? ” Heloise asked, with her winsome, irresisti- 
ble smile. 

“ She uses her arms to the exclusion of her legs 
so much in her dances that, in slang phrase, they 
may be said to cut a greater figure,” Mrs. Caton re- 
plied to Heloise. 

“ I am fond of music-halls,” the girl declared. 
“ An ordinary society play bores me, and Tragedy is 
quite impossible in this period.” 

“ I would not like 5mur friends. Sir Henry Irving 
and Ellen Teny, to hear your confession,” I rebuk- 
ingly said to Heloise. 

“ That is true, Lenoir,” she good-humoredly ad- 
mitted. “ 1 exclude these artists from my denuncia- 
tion. My admiration of them personally is so gi'eat 


A JVOMAN IFITII A liECOliD. 


151 


that it matters but little to me what they play. Ellen 
Terry is crystallized sunshine, and Sir Henry is the 
embodiment of congeniality and of friendliness.” 

“ You pay a gracious tribute,” I said, “ to two 
artists most worthy of it, and I will tell 3^011 that one 
secret of Sir Henry Irving’s great success is the 
breadth of nature that enables him to make and re- 
tain friends. A secret of Ellen Terry’s inimitable 
sway over the hearts of her admirers of both sexes is 
her unselfishness and amiability. These qualities, 
even more than personal magnetism, appeal to those 
with whom she is brought in contact, and move the 
multitude.” 

“Descending from art and artists to ordinary 
mortals,” j\Ii-s. Caton said, “I heard Mr. Chapin 
tell Mr. Vance this afternoon, that he had taken a 
great fanc}^ to him on account of his w ife. I thought 
that quite an original compliment.” 

“A rather obscure one,” Heloise interposed. 

“Not at all,” Mrs. Caton urged. “ The greatest 
compliment in a man’s life is his wife.” 

“ Some men consider her the most uncompliment- 
aiy thing in it, and desire no more such,” Heloise 
continued, in the Catonesque mode of speech which 
she has adopted of late. 

Fred Manton turned his attention to Heloise, 
from this time until the liqueurs and cigaiettes were 
put on the table. As we dined somewfiiat sans cere- 
monies we remained with the men Avhile the}’’ smoked, 
thus depriving them of the ojjportunity to discuss us. 


152 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


Mrs. Fulton, although from Chicago, had not 
learned to smoke, and lighted her maiden cigarette, 
as Heloise jokingly called it. She soon tossed it, in 
sorrow, aside. Mrs. Fulton will learn to enjoy a 
Nestor better if slie lingers long in New York. 

Chicago, founded on smoke, and thriving upon it, 
should produce no woman of the Fulton type. 

Even Chicago, at times, delights in contrast ! 

Manrel was not in his best form at dinner. Evi- 
dently he liad been gambling. This habit affects 
his brain, as liquor does tluit of some men. 

I often question wliich vice is the more deplorable; 
but when I realize that rum destroys a man’s per- 
sonnel and degrades him to tlie level of a common 
tramp, I prefer the gambler to the drunkard. Ihe 
one vice requires brain ; the other steals it away. 

“ I have listened more tlian mingled in the talk, 
to-night, my sweetheart,” Manrel softly said, as we 
parted ; and the tenderness of his tone sweetened 
my dreams. 


A jrOMJJV WITH A liECOlW. 


153 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

A SPARRING MATCH OF WORDS. 

“ I REALLY did not know that Fred Manton was 
so amusing as I found him last evening. He seemed 
to admire me, too,” Heloise ingenuously said the 
following morning to me, as she lounged about my 
boudoir in a China silk saute de lit and puffed at a 
cigarette. 

I have tried to break Heloise from the habit of 
smoking, it is so injurious to a young girl, and so 
likely to coarsen her in the eyes of men. 

“ Practice what you preach,” the girl advises me. 

I explained to her that my life abroad accustomed 
me to habits that are not desirable in a girl reared in 
the greater conventionality of America. 

“ I consider life here most unconventional,” she 
argued, this morning. “ A girl in Europe must be 
chaperoned ; here she can go it alone.” 

“ Not if she be in the social swim,” I told Heloise. 
“ The surface of her life must be smooth and white 
like the frosting on a cake, and instead of going it 
alone, she is tied to the apron-strings of her chaper- 
on quite as much as abroad.” 

Heloise gave a Cissy Fitzgerald wink — a newly 


154 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


acquired accoraplislimeiit of liers, and, pulling a rose 
from my table, she scattered the leaves over her 
pretty gown. 

The girl, as she reclined against the pink cushions 
of my divan in her pink robe, revealing the gleam- 
ing flesh from throat and arm, reminded me of a La 
France rose. 

“Was Fred Manton ever fond of you ?'"’ &\\q in- 
quired, with a curious look out of the corner of her 
dancing dark eyes. 

“ Not especially.” 

“ Then why did he give you that turquoise brooch 
for your birthday ? ” 

“Oh, Fred is an old friend, I might say an old 
chum of mine, and he is a jolly good fellow with his 
money,” I laughed. 

“ That is a recommendation ; I have found Albert 
Vane to be quite the reverse.” 

“ He gave you the enamelled clover-leaf,” I sug- 
gested. My policy with the girl is not to disparage 
Vane, but to let her discover his selfishness and actual 
stinginess compared with other men whom she meets. 

“ Yes, Lenoir, it is true that Albert Vane gave me 
the little pin, but he had an object in this. I wondered 
if Fred IMantou was ruled by a similar motive.” 

The giiTs language and look implied a confession 
of herself and a suspicion of me which only her 
youth could justify. 

Experience in the world gives the finesse which 
nature accords only to her feminine masterpieces. 


A WOMAN WITH A liECOlW. 155 

Experience is costly, like gold leaf, but it is essen- 
tial to the fine framing of the human picture. 

We must buy success with youth, and sometimes 
with faith, but it implies wealth, and power, and free- 
dom. The game is worth the candle. It pays to 
work and wait, to plan and to achieve. 

“ Would you be pleased for me to fall in love with 
Fred Manton?” Heloise asked, to my great surprise. 

I told her that Fred was not the sort to recipi'ocate 
her affection, that he is a typical man-about-town, a 
club man, with no domestic desires, and most un- 
likely to marry, having passed through the crucible 
of several heart-smashing experiences. 

“ Should I marry Mr. Manton he need not materi- 
ally change his mode of life. We would live at the 
Waldorf, and he could still patronize his clubs. We 
would not be supposed to move into the Provinces ; 
we need not even reside in Orange.” 

Heloise grows more sarcastic as her episodes in- 
crease. Extreme worldliness dominates her, and she 
measures people by the use they may be to her. 

Heloise is the style of girl upon whom men will 
squander their dollars and their love. 

“ I want to go to ‘ The Knickerbocker,’ Fred said 
that he would secure seats for to-morrow evening. 
Of course I can go without a chaperon,” Heloise 
said, in a musing tone, as she started to leave me. 

“ Heloise, throughout your life, I fancy that yon 
will follow only the lead of your own sweet will,” I 
replied. “Still, should you decide to permanently 


166 


A WOMAN With a becord. 


settle on Fred Maiitoii, it might be as well tliat you 
throw about you the safeguard of conn:)anionship. 
Fred’s opinion of woman is not the' most exalted, I re- 
gret to say, and it were wise that you foster or humor 
any faint ideas of their unapproachableness which lie 
may retain. The women of his race have been cor- 
rect in conduct ; they have had on their lives the 
veneer of society. Fred is partly Bohemian in habits, 
yet down in his heart lingers the old-time ideas of 
woman and her sphere. He has some feeling, and 
great generosity. The right woman might even yet 
lead him into paths of virtue, and round out his life 
with healthful pleasure. In Fred you would have 
two chances, — one for yourself and one for him. With 
Albert Vane there would be at once and forever in 
your lives, a regret and a ruin.” 

“ I shall not marry Mr. Vane,” the girl declared, 
with heightening color. 

I read Heloise well enough to interpret her motive 
in planning an alliance with Fred Man ton. He has 
the advantages of family and wealth. How the blue 
blood of his relatives would curdle at the thought of 
his marriage to a girl without moi als or honor, — a girl 
whose only dower will be her beauty, with its transi- 
tory bloom. 

“ Why this sudden desire to wed Fred Manton ? ” 
I asked. 

“ I have not decided to marry him ; I am ruminating 
on the possibilities of such an event.” 

“ If you are considering this matter as a business 


1 lF03f-4iV WITH A RECORD. 


157 


speculation, wliy did you suggest falling in love with 
Fred?” 

“ Partly to test your sentiments for him, and partly 
because my lieart and imagination are so elastic that 
I might even take in a love-affair Avith Mr. Manton.” 

“ You have no heart, Heloise,” I declared. “ You 
are slightly affectionate and somewhat sentimental, 
at times, but the emotion of love will plant no fur- 
rows in your face.” 

“ Then I shall retain my looks,” the giddy girl 
decided, as she arose, and, shaking out the laces of 
her gown, complacently viewed herself in the mirror. 

“You will have, in life, the advantage of not fret- 
ting. Worry is a greater enemy than time is to 
beauty.” 

“ lias Vane intimated the catastrophe of marriage 
to you?” I asked, with almost a sneer. 

“ V ane said to me that he would marry me if I 
desired it,” the girl answered, Avith a mocking smile. 
“ I determined then to make a clever marriage — clever 
from the Avorld’s standpoint and from yours, Lenoir, 
because, despite the Avretched folly of your infatua- 
tion for Maurel, youAvill not end your life witli.liim, 
you are playing a part in a little melodrama, through 
Avhich a villain stalks and over Avhich possibly a 
tragedy hovers.” 

My heart felt a sudden chill at these careless words 
of a reckless girl, — a chill such as it felt at the proph- 
ecy of Mrs. Dreggs. 


158 


A JVOMAN WITH A BECOBD. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

A TKAGEDY IN HIGH LIFE. 

I WAS at an uptown reception this afternoon when 
I heard of the death of old Moneybags’ wife. Poor 
woman ! She was killed by a fall from her carriage. 

All the guests discussed the catastrophe. Money- 
bags’ wealth and station made his dead wife an object 
of commiseration, as in life they had made her an 
object of envy. 

A sudden sweep of a cable-car rattled the brain 
of the staid English coachman, the footman was not 
alert at his team, there was a bang and a crash; and 
the woman in her silken splendor was hurled to her 
doom. 

The heart of the masses is stirred for a moment by 
these accidents. 

Life itself pauses aghast on the threshold of Death ! 
Moneybags was not in love with his wife, but he 
owed her much, and her exquisite style did him 
credit. Even the owner of a great race-winner drops 
a tear when his fine filly falls dead on the track or in 
the stall. 

I shall attend Mrs. Moneybags’ funeral. It will 
be the only tribute I can pay to her memory. 


A WOMAN WITM a RECORD. 


159 


Dear, good little IMrs. Langdon poured tea at the 
reception to-day, and as I sat near lier for a moment 
she told me her tale of woe. The times were hard, 
and all her money had to be spent on the pretty 
daughter. 

“ I have had no new gown this season,” she con- 
fessed with a sigh. 

“No matter, little woman,” I comfortingly de- 
clared ; “ you overshadow other women in the latest 
and costliest modes. Your gems are the priceless 
ones of virtue and of sincerity, and you can test the 
value of tlie friendship of your followers.” I also 
told her that my own gown was a wreck from last year. 

“ A beautiful one ; indeed all your toilets are a 
study in fabrics.” Mrs. Langdon said, with honest 
admiration. 

I heard by chance that Cecile, her daugliter, will 
liave a birthday, this week. I shall send her a dainty 
cape of chiffon and lace, tied witli rose-ribbons. I 
purchased it for Ileloise, but the otlier girl needs it 
more ; and Fred Manton’s gold can pay for the adorn- 
ment of the woman who will sell her pretty figure 
to him. 

When I make money I always invest it in clothes — 
they come in conveniently when I am not successful. 

Young Wilmore sang a love-ballad this afternoon 
which entranced a dame of quite fifty years. 

“ What a lover he would make ! ” the lady ex- 
claimed, with flashing eye. 

All the women who heard her laughed. I inter- 


160 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


posed. “ Wliy shouldn’t this lady appreciate the 
sentiment of love, and yearn for it ? ” 

“ Bah, she is too old ! ” Mrs. Gray sneered. 

“No one is too old to long for, or to win, love,” I 
continued, in defence of the singer’s admirer. 

“Pshaw! Mrs. Gray means a lover like Faust or 
Romeo, something melodramatic, ” Mrs. Cary laughed. 
“ I, at least realize that I am too old for these effects, 
and I am younger than Mrs. Gray.” 

“ Girls, don't let us wrangle about age,” I laughed. 
“ It has its beauties, as youth has, aiid its superiority 
in knowledge, which youth is only seeking. Time 
ripens and mellows the fruit that Avithout its sun- 
shine would remain green and tasteless.” 

“Madame Vaillant is always philosophical,” my 
friend Mrs. Langdon declared. 

I told them of the theatre the other evening, and 
of Minnie Maddern Fisk’s interpretation of “ Nora,” 
in “ The Doll’s House.” 

“ W asn’t it beautiful ? ” Clinton Thorpe said, with 
a smile of cultured enthusiasm. 

“Ibsen saddens me,” I replied. “ He makes me 
think so hard. Thought spoils my looks. Women 
Avho care for their looks should not think.” 

“Seriously, madame, do you not adore Ibsen, and 
isn’t Nora a wonderful study ? ” 

“Yes, Clinton, I agree with jmu, that ‘ Nora’ is 
a study of emotions, to bo comprehended only by 
women who have suffered as she did — women mis- 
placed in the great play of Life — miscast, I might. say, 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 161 

who are rudely awakened by a shock similar to that 
which transfixed and overwhelmed the poor little 
woman in ‘ The Doll’s House.’ How many women 
and men too bartered their birthriglit for a mess of 
pottage, and how few have had the courage of their 
convictions, to begin first of all the study of them- 
selves. It seems to me that since Sliakespeare, Hen- 
rik Ibsen has best understood and porti'ayed tlie emo- 
tions of the human heart, as regulated by that in- 
fallible chronometer — the human brain.” 

“You would have made a good actress, Madame 
Vaillant,” Clinton Thorpe commented. 

“ I make a better critic,” I returned. “ The role 
is easier, and I prefer Life’s softest spots. I am not 
a worker, only a pitiful idler through the world.” 

“ The appreciation of genius is almost as rare as 
its possession,” said Thorpe. 

To-night, sitting alone amid the ruins of my life, 
the thought comes to me that possibly Clinton’s sur- 
mise was correct. I might have been a successful 
actress. I do not deprecate the stage as a refuge fi-om 
ennui for women who weary of their husbands and 
their social routine. It oftentimes is a quick road 
to fame and fortune ; but I realize that the little 
child born almost in the footlight glare, and trained 
amid the labyrinth of the stage and its setting, has 
a likelier beginning than the social doll, with her 
accomplishments and charms. For the women used 
to the slow swing of ball-room grace, and the studictl 
smile of a drawing-room, the stage holds out an i.l- 

II 


162 A WOMAN WITH A ItECOBD. 

luring, yet too often disappointing, career, the social 
demands of high fashion are extreme ; the treadmill is 
ceaseless ; yet it does not equal the more pitiless one 
of the stage to women who think and work and plan 
for its potent successes. 

A present queen of comic opera not long since, 
like a shooting star flashing through the theatrical sky, 
and sinking into obscurity, declared that work and 
caretaking and hard study should lift her again into 
the brilliancy of the dramatic firmament. With a flash 
of her violet eyes, and a toss of her shining hair, she 
registered an oath to win the greatest prize which 
opera honffe offered. “ I will become the queen of 
comic opera, and a princess of that half-world, where 
men shower gold and jewels and roses, on such 
women as I shall be. I will reign in the domain of 
light song, and win a millionaire with my laurels.” 

Eight years have gone by since the singer made her 
vow. She worked and waited and won ! 

I wonder what is left in life for me to win ? 

I have run the gamut of love, fashion, and wealth. 
Remains there for me a new note to touch in life’s 
chromatic scale? Maurel’s love — pianinHimo / Money- 
bags’ position— / I will strike that note, 
and drown with its brazen sound, all the softer ca- 
dences of my heart memories. 


A WOMAJ^ irinj A UECORD. 


163 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

A FUNERAL IN SOCIETY. 

The church was thronged with the liigh priestesses 
of fashion at the funeral of Mrs. Moneybags. She 
would have enjoyed the edat of her obsequies. Can 
the dead penetrate material surroundings with the 
spiritual eye? 

I sat quite still while the music wailed and throbbed 
through the vast cathedral aisles. The pomp and 
splendor of nature were without ; the pomp and glory 
of religion were within — the chanting choristers, the 
robed priest, the kneeling multitude. 

The dead woman lay white and cold Avith folds of 
soft crepe crossing her breast, and a bunch of violets 
in her hands, bared of their priceless gems, and Avear- 
ing only the thin golden circlet of her bridal day. 

Devoid of the appointments of Avealth ; Avithoutthe 
fine laces that empresses had Avorn to court halls ; 
Avithout the rubies and pearls and diamonds of her 
splendid parures; without the shimmering satins of 
lier gOAvns the beautiful fine-blooded queen of tlie 
haute monde lay in her long, dreamless sleep, robed 
in the simplicity of her girlhood. 

I knew that the violets on her breast had come from 


164 


A JVO.VAN JVir// A RECORD. 


her husband, they were her favorite flower; she laid 
worn them always on the drive and in the ball-room. 
Sympathy filled my heart for the woman so cold and 
still. Death is a tragedy to the successful ! 

Moneybags’ face was rigid, like that of the dead. 
He has no heart; the getting of wealth has frozen its 
fountains ; but the sudden severing of a bond like 
marriage should have brought a tear to the eyes of 
even so hardened a sinner as old Moneybags. 

A glint of sunshine stole througli the stained glass 
windows of the church and fell as a benediction on 
the face of the dead. The effect was so beautiful 
that it touched my heart as the smile of God might 
have done. 

The music of the anthem of sorrow swelled through 
the church; the perfume of the flowers floated out on 
the incense laden air ; the coffin was born reverently 
into the sunshine of the spring day, which was fair as 
if drojDped from the heart of a careless June. 

Women of fashion entered their crested carriages, 
and were whirled from the darkened cathedral into 
the light and color and charm of the Paik’s enticing 
driveway. Life swept Death out of tlie heart, and the 
thrilling episode of the woman’s doom was forgotten. 

Heloise and I saw FredManton and Maurel on the 
Avenue ; we stopped the brougham and accepted 
their invitation to luncheon at the Plaza Hotel. 

' “ We can have a good luncheon there, and you 

ladies can then continue your drive while we men 
take a constitutional in the Park,” Fred suggested. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


1G5 


“ I thought ^on cared only for the Avenue and 
your Club windows,” 1 said to Fred, as Ave seated 
ourselves in the Cupid room of the Plaza’s splendid 
d la carte suite. 

“ I am taking to nature, of late,” Fred replied, 
glancing somewhat sentimentally at Heloise. Tlie 
girl is one of nature’s chef-d’ ceuvres. 

“ The superb location and exquisite cuisine of the 
Plaza surpasses any of New York’s great hotels,” 
observed Maurel. 

“ Three vermouth cocktails,” was Manton’s order 
to the waiter. 

“ Why three ? ” Maurel questioned. 

“ I will join you in Chablis, but I am trying to 
stop drinking cocktails and straight whisky.” 

“ Since when ? ” laughed Maurel. 

“ Since I made a fool of myself the night before 
last, by smashing the windows of a cab, and spend- 
ing a hundred dollars for a supper that I didn’t want, 
and with people for whom I didn’t care. I think 
that I sowed my last Avild oat then, and trust it Avill 
not come up a tare.” 

“ Are you really very fast, Fred ? ” Heloise asked, 
with the innocent look in her eyes which completely 
deceives people. 

“That depends on Avhat you mean by fast. I 
am like the other fellows, I suppose.* My pace 
isn’t much slower. “ I have vices, Avithout being 
vicious.” 

“ Fred is all right,” Maurel joined in ; he isn’t full 


IGG 


A WOMAN WITH A liECORlh 


much ofteiier than the moon is, anti he always wins 
at play. He is what the world calls lucky.” 

“ I really wonder if tliere is much in that word 
luck? ” Heloise musingly said. 

I told the girl that I could not reply to her question, 
that it was a problem which has puzzled many wiser 
than ourselves. 

“ Luck is luck,” Maurel soliloquized, glancing out 
on the moving panorama in front of the beautiful 
Plaza. 

“ I think that the correct interpretation of luck is 
taking advantage of opportunity,” said Fred. 

“ Possibly you are right,” Maurel acquiesced. “ I 
have permitted the golden chances of my life to slip 
through my fingers.” 

My clairvo3^ant instinct, intensified by my expe- 
rience and knowledge of the man’s career, made me 
feel that Maurel’s assertion was false. 

The little voice which often warns me • whispered 
then that I was to Maurel only a golden chance in 
life, a woman to be deceived and used and forgotten. 

Lenoir Vaillant has led, rather than followed men. 
Why should she humor the whims of a dissolute 
Frenchman ? 

Two people passed the hotel, just then, and bowed 
to our party. We violated the proprieties by sig- 
nalling the couple to join us within. They surprised 
us with the acknowledgment of their forthcoming 
marriage. 

“We shall make a departure in marriage,” the 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


167 


quaint little figure declared. “ I shall continue to 
live alone, and receive my new husband, by card 
only.” 

You will change your name, yet save your char- 
acter,” I asserted. 

“ Possibly so ; but this question involves that of 
whether marriage really does save a woman’s charac- 
ter,” the girl cleverly rejoined. 

“ The character of a girl who marries should defy 
criticism,” said Fred Manton. 

“ Why hers more than that of the man whom she 
weds ? ” I asked. 

“ Because a man’s wife is the mother of his children, 
and upon her purity his future and that of his off- 
spring depends.” 

“ The blood in the veins of his children is that of 
the father, as well as that of the mother. If either 
be poisoned by folly and sin, the heritage of worth- 
lessness and of woe must fall to the lot of their chil- 
dren,” I declared. 

“ Women are what men make them,” Maurel de- 
cided, with the gallantry of the French. 

“ Men are what women would not have them be,” 
I rejoined. 

“ Were men’s lives built on the lines that women 
lay down, the dear creatures would weary of our 
perfections,” replied Maurel. 

Possibly this is true ; we tire of the mental chateaux 
that we build ; the fine lines of our imagination form 
a web, like tliat of the spider, into which we allure 


168 


A JVOjMAN with a BECOllD. 


the male fly ; when he comes into the little webi 
after many wanderings, the idea of his bondage often 
tempts us to tear the dainty fabric aside with a sweep 
of the hand ; as men do, we, also, desire pursuit.” 

I think IMaurel’s influence over me must have 
waned, ere thoughts like these could fill my brain. 
Gold has been the nightmare of my life. Since the 
olden days when Vaillant fell dead, with a blackened 
past, and a fortune in debts for Ids monument, I liave 
struggled in the throes of this monster — gold. It has 
sapped the joy from my youth, and embittered my 
fairest love-dreams. It has implanted in my lieart 
envy of more fortunate women, whose pleasure in 
life has been that of splendor, rather than that of get- 
ting money. I think when the great roll-call shall 
sound, bejmnd the silence of death, the women who 
Avill be promoted to the foremost ranks of heaven 
Avill be those that have not trailed their youth and 
beauty and fair fame through the mire of life’s vicis- 
situdes, but who have been nurtured on success, and 
worn always the cloak of a protecting love. 

Ileloise will marry Fred Manton ; she charms him. 
Fred knows well the world of womankind. He might 
be termed. “The Squire of Dames,” yet Fred will 
wed a girl because her cheeks are ruddy, and lier 
eyes are bright, and her crisp mots amuse him. 

The man is weary of women of the world ; women 
with stories of intrigue and unholy loves ; he wants 
in his life a flavor of inocence, so he seeks to plant in 
the garden of Ins heart a little wild rose like Ileloise. 


A WOMAN Wini A liEiJOliD. 


IGD 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

A BROKERS SUNDAY “ AT HOME.” 

Ho^Y much sport some people miss by not knowing 
what goes on in this big town ! I went with Miss 
Knowington to an “ at home ” last Sunday afternoon. 
The house was that of a broker recently enriched by 
successful operations on “ the street.” 

The man’s tastes are simple as to his mode of life 
six days in the week ; but on the seventh he gives his 
friends a royal good time. 

The house is adorned with modern art. The floors 
are covered with costly Indian rugs. The walls are 
hung with tapestries and Spanish leatlier ; cosy nooks 
are filled with soft cusliions, and draped with foreign 
stuffs. Pictures of footlight celebrities are framed 
between panelled paintings of modern subjects. From 
the marbled entrance to the mahogany buffet in the 
miniature bar-room, all is new. The Raines law does 
not affect this most inviting social resort. 

Orchestral music enlivens the guests ; a woman of 
spotless morality receives them. In the gorgeous 
drawing-room they assemble, and wander thence to 
explore tlie picturesque scenes beyond. Fragrance 
enriches the aii-, and the fountain spray falls from 
the uplifted liands of a marble cupid. 


170 


.1 Jt’OJ/JiV WITH A RECORD. 


So entrancing did Mrs. Goodwin find this little 
god of Love, that she tumbled into his arms, mistaking 
her bearings, with possible memories of a Turkish 
plunge. 

There was a scream, a half-smothered laugh, and 
the woman lay, in her latest Paris gown, chest deep 
in the water. She was fished out by the munificent 
host and barred from results of her soak by a hot 
wliisky. 

1 sympathized with the woman, on account of the 
steely front which her bodice presented. Water is 
fatal to this sort of trimming, and Mrs. Goodwin’s 
heart can be touched only through her clothes. It 
was really a very droll incident, and quite varied the 
usual tenor of gossip. 

A novel feature of the Sunday show is that of the 
services of Mr. Newman’s office-staff at his weekly 
functions. One man passes on the eligibility of the 
guests, another points out the curios of the rnSnage, 
a third tends bar. 

To the credit of the guests be it said, the hospital- 
ity of this bar is never abused. 

Miss Knowington is quite a favorite character of 
New York society. She is clever enough to go in 
several sets, which welcome her because of her refined 
nature and crisp hadinar/e. She possesses the rare 
faculty of not boring people with stale stories and 
worthless gossip, having always a fresh morceau in 
lier collection. 

I heard to-da}' that Mrs. Lynch desei-ted Albert 


A WOMAN WITH .1 UECOIM). 


171 


Vane’s office for tliat of the clashing broker, Mr. 
Thorley. Vane had made love to her money, and her 
commissions Avere a fine perquisite for liim. 

Mrs. Lynch is of the stunning blonde type that 
catches the fancy of most brokers. She made quite 
a fortune on good information, then took it to 
Paris to spend. Returning, she went again to Wall 
Street to make more money. Albert Vane led her 
astray, though this seems scarcely possible after three 
years of Parisian life. As she remargined her stocks, 
her smiles for Vane grew less fond, their luncheons 
together became less frequent, until she began to nibble 
at the more attractive bait held out by Broker Thorley. 
Her shining, copper tea-kettle, her Russian tea and 
her sumptuous self were removed from the offices of 
Bull & Bear to those of Thorley, a few blocks above. 
As Mrs. Lynch is a plunger in stocks, young Thorley 
has struck it rich. 

This uptown branch is merely incidental in the 
great business career of this ambitious broker, whose 
offices are fitted up regardless of expense, whose 
views on the street are considered proverbs, and 
whose close ally is the silent partner of an equally 
ambitious Consolidated house. 

In this silent man’s more silent office, in the rear 
of the suite, these two young men plan and scheme 
to outwit older heads and maturer judgment. Their 
motto is “ get rich, at any price.” They live and 
drive and dress en prince. 

Some one has hoodooed me, as the New Orleans 


172 


A WOMAN WITH A EECOED. 


darkies say. I must get a fetish. Since Solon Maurel 
crossed the disk of my life, it has seemed spotted and 
blurred. In theatrical slang, he has “ queered ” me. 
This feeling regarding one’s lover is unfortunate. My 
star of success is clouded. I should not make losses. 
My information and experience are too large for that. 

Here is a note from Maurel, sent in a box of Brig- 
man’s violets. 

“ 3Ia 31ignonne : 

“ Possibly you will think that even violets have 
thorns, when you pluck from the depth of their sweet- 
ness, this request, for one hundred dollars to be re- 
turned shortly, with interest, in kisses warm from the 
heart and the lips of 

“ Yours always, 

“ Solon.” 

This letter implies a command, amid its studied 
tenderness. 

I dislike financial transaction with Maurel ; they 
cloud my horoscope. He recalls more and more to 
me the Dreggs woman’s prediction. Well, money 
is easier than love to win ; a hundred dollars means 
to me only a point in a stock ; to IMaurel it may imply 
success or ruin. 

Ever the fatal game goes on ; the coffers of the , 
bank are bursting with ill-gotten gold. The gamester 
in cards and the gambler in stocks are alike. The 
road leads to the same ending — defeat and ruin. 


A IFOJ/AN inni A RECORD. 


173 


CHAPTER XXX. 

MRS MALLORY HAUNTS LENOIR’s DREAMS. 

Fred Manton sent Heloise a bicycle. These two 
seem getting on rather well. A marriage between 
them really would not surprise me. 

Heloise is a most fortunate girl ; as my star is set- 
ting hers rises in the sky of financial success. 

I once dreamt of possibilities in tlie girl’s future. 
I determined on a brilliant marriage for her. This 
hope she nearly thwarted by her recklessness. Fred 
Manton seemed to drift naturally toward her as a 
flower inclines to the sun. 

The great good luck of Heloise’s life lifts her over 
any abyss. The evil influences of mine tend to sink 
me into depths out of which I cannot rise. How 
can I solve this problem of fate ? 

Heloise’s nature is as tropical as my own, but she 
has lierself better in liand. Experience teaches me 
nothing, I lavish my love and my life on objects 
most unwortliy. Solon IMaurel will drain the last 
dollar from my purse and the last drop of blood from 
my heart, and crush from my breast its final liopc, 
while Heloise’s clearer brain will lead her to success. 
I presume that this is good judgment I'ather than luck. 


174 


1 WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


The thought that Maiirel might bring a little lost 
happiness back to my heart has vanished ; I cling to 
him onl}" because I am utterly adrift Avithout him. 
Had my nature been of the commonplace kind which 
leads women into life’s calmest channels, I could find 
interest in the social routine that satisfies most 
women. Unfortunately a restiveness similar to that 
which sways Maurel permeates my nature, and forces 
me to the same pursuits and follies that will ruin 
liim. 

Heloise just came in my rooms, attired in her natty 
bicycle suit, ready for a spin up the Boulevard with 
her lover. 

“ Why don’t you learn to ride ? ” she asked. 

“ I told her that carriage riding suited me better. 
Like Mrs. Steele, I prefer repose in my pleasures. I 
do not admire women on the wheel ; yet I recognize 
its benefits for them. A woman never presents a 
more charming picture than when beautifully gowned 
and seated in an open carriage. 

I went with Maurel to an evening reception at the 
Metropolitan Museum of Art. We met Mr. Chapin 
in one of the galleries, and discussed with him my 
favorite paintings by Cabanel. 

Mr. Chapin is nothing if not coarse, and not having 
been through the art exhibition of the museum, of 
late, he inquired of me if there was anything new in 
nudes. I sent him in search of several whicli I 
warml}’" commended to his inspection. 

The rubicund old beau shortly returned to us with 


A WOMAN WITH A liECOIil). 


175 


a disappointed look, and declared his inability to dis- 
cover the nudes. 

“ Oh, at your approach, they put on their clothes,” 
I laughed. 

“ One of the pleasures of your life is guying me,” 
said Mr. Chapin. “ Suppose I should ask your views 
on marriage for me ? ” 

“ I would say that I always considered^ you most 
friendly to my sex, and wonder what women have 
done to you that 3'^ou should desire to punish one of 
them.” 

“ You are severe but truthful ; still I thought that 
the diversion of marriage might amuse me, and I 
could offer, in return, a good old name, which has no 
smirch upon it. 1 might also give a little affection — 
that is as much I am capable of. 

“ What return would j’ou expect from the fair 
lady ? ” I asked. 

“Youth, love, and some mone}',” IVIr. Chapin 
modestly admitted. “ At twenty-five, a man craves 
only affection from the girl of his choice ; at thirt}’- 
five, he prefers money with love ; at forty-five he 
wants a combination of j^outh, love, and money.” 

“ What are his desires in this respect at fifty-five ? ” 
Maurel quizzingly inquired. 

“ Marriage should have become to him then only a 
forlorn hope. In his heart may be a prayer of thanks 
for escape from it, or a pang of regret that he missed 
its charm. These two sentiments are actuated by 
the class of women who have ruled tlie man’s life.” 


170 


A WOMAN WITH A UECOTil). 


Mr. Chapin is sensitive as to his age. He declares 
that he is twenty-one and upwards. At sixty and 
upwards a bit of boyish sentimentality lingers in his 
heart amid his cynical beliefs. Neither Mrs. Steele 
nor Mr. Chapin will outlive romance ; nor should 
they. It is the perfume of life. 

“ I did not attribute sentiment to our friend, Mr. 
Chapin,” Maurel declared, with his usual sarcasm. 

I told him that I had seen Mr. Chapin in love more 
than once during the past few years, but his affairs 
of the heart were as the ladies’ chain in the lancers — 
a constant change. 

“ Yes, Madame Vaillant has seen me under the 
influence of several infatuations ; but a man is not 
at his best unless in love,” Mr. Chapin gallantly said. 

“ A man is at his very worst, when in love,” Mau- 
rel declared. 

“ By the way, I hear that Moneybags has lost in- 
terest in life since the death of his charming wife,” 
Mr. Chapin said with a twinkle in his bold blue eyes. 

“ The lady must have been a good investment for 
him,” said Maurel. 

“ I will wager that the old gentlemen will i-einvest 
his capital in a similar security,” JMr. Chapin re- 
torted, with a meaning glance at me. 

Maurel flushed, and proposed a stroll through the 
galleries. As I walked between the two men, I told 
them that I reminded myself of a Club sandwich. 

“ We confess that we are as dough in your hands,” 
laughed Chapin. “Indeed I often am inspired to 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


177 


enter the race for you, though I fear with small 
chances of success against so many rivals.” 

“ 1 might form a marriage syndicate,” I laughed. 

Maurel was rather moody, as we drove home. He 
confessed to me that Mrs. Mallory had bothered him 
of late with notes containing half-concealed threats 
which made him nervous. 

“ Women who make threats rarely execute them,” 
I told Maurel. 

He said I did not realize what sort of woman Mrs. 
Mallory was. “ She has the temper of a devil,” he 
declared. 

“ I do not fear hei’,” I insisted, yet my dreams that 
night were haunted witli visions of a haggard woman, 
with wicked eyes, and a sneer of triumph on her 
bloodless lips. 

12 


m 


A WOMAN WITH A ItECOliD. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 
heloise’s star rises. 

Maurel lias been the fatality of my life. My star 
set when Herbert Lee died. His love was an amulet. 
Had lie lived to encircle me with his protecting arms, 
and to flood my life with the halo of his love, the 
hajipiness I pictured might have been realized. 

Solon IMaurel is to me a stimulant which intoxi- 
cates for the moment, and destroys in the end. The 
retrospect of my life proves to me that I loved only 
one man, who took with him mj^ lieart in liis journey 
across the dark river of Death. 

Heloise was brought home to-day in a cab. Fred 
Manton rushed up to my rooms with tears in his voice, 
which begged me to go to the girl. She had fallen 
from her wheel, and he feared that she had sustained 
a severe injury. 

Heloise was , as white as death when I met her, just 
as the attendants lifted her from the cab. She smiled 
wanly into my face. Heloise collapses under trouble 
or pain. 

I doubt if strength be well in women. Their 
weakness appeals to men more than their strength 
does. 


A 1V0MAN mrn a record. 


179 


Fred Mantoii affects weak women. He deludes 
himself with the idea that mental and moral strength 
belong exclusively to men. 

Comprehending that the girl was suffering from 
only a sprained ankle and some bruises, I wired my 
masseuse to attend her, and after settling her comfort- 
ably amid a lot of cushions, I called Fred Man ton 
into my boudoir and asked liim quite frankly what 
were liis intentions towards tlie girl. 

“I want to marry Iiei',’’ Fred admitted, with liis 
sunny smile. He went on to explain that having felt 
for me only sentiments of friendship, and having run 
the gauntlet of deception in many women, he fancied 
that the surest road to happiness lay in the innocence 
of youth. 

“ This girl has not lived in a P uritanical atmos- 
phere. She has some unfortunate qualities which 
have not been improved by her associations, but she 
is warm-hearted and sincere, and very beautiful. I 
tliink I can mould her into an almost perfect woman,” 
Fred complacently avowed. 

Visions of the Manton wealth, and the Manton 
name flashed through my brain. My oath of placing 
Heloise well in life, had its final chance of fulfil- 
ment. The nightmare of Albert Vane’s transitory 
charm for the girl was replaced by the brilliant 
picture of an alliance with the Manton mill- 
ions. 

“You have chosen wisely, Fred,” I said, “and my 
cliief desire is to facilitate this marriage.” 


180 


A WOMAN WITH A HECOHD. 


“Do you think Heloise loves me ? ” Fred asked, 
with a doubt on his handsome face. 

“ Undoubtedly she does,” I replied. “ Otherwise 
why should she encourage your attentions? The 
world of mankind is open to her. With her beauty 
she can pick and choose from its numbers.” 

“ Your knowledge of men will make you marvel 
at my infatuation for a 3'oung girl when you re- 
call my career with women,” Fred said, with a 
laugh. 

I told F'red that my studies of men taught me to 
copper their most pronounced views. 

“ This implies a doubt of my choice in Heloise,” 
Fred demurred. 

Taking his hand, I said, with as honest a ring as 
my voice could acquire, “ Fred, I think Heloise and 
you are suited in temperament and tastes. These 
features go far towards the fulfilment of tlie promises 
of marriage. Heloise will bring you, not wealth, but 
beauty for her dot. Your riches can decorate this 
beauty, and foster the giiTs innate purity. Beauty'- is 
the highest trump in a woman’s game ; I am pleased 
that Heloise possesses it. It is to youth as the 
morning dew is to the rose.” 

“ Heloise possesses more potent charms than 
beauty, she has wit and sweetness of nature,” Fred 
declared with enthusiasm. 

My heart warmed for this old friend of my more 
reckless claj^s. 

“ Since you quiz me, I will turn the tables on you, 


A iroMAN mm .4 becord. 


181 


and inquire what are your intentions toward Solon 
Maurel ? ” Fred jokingly said. 

“ That is the twentieth-century way of putting it,” 
I lauglied. “ Wliy not ask what liis intentions toward 
me ai-e ? ” 

“I liave already guessed them,” my friend re- 
plied, in a tone which did not indicate approval of 
them. 

Fred Manton does not admire the Frenchman. He 
is too good an American to accord with the selfish 
nature and habits that conduce to the wholesale 
using of Avomen by foreigners. 

American-born, yet cosmoj)olitanly educated, men 
sometimes shatter the fortunes of their mothers and 
tlieir Avives, but to the credit of the men of our 
nation, these occurrences are infrequent, 

Man’s province is to fill the larder and the ex- 
chequer. Woman’s mission is to lighten and brighten 
these duties for him. 

A Avoman told me that she alloAA^s lier husband 
three per cent, of his income for spending money, 
Avith fiA^e dollars extra on Saturday. Instead of tliis 
being pin money, it might be termed “balling” 
money. All the Aveek this genius of the pen keeps 
sober, but on Saturday he “ balls off ” the boys. Pos- 
sibly did this thrifty wife not hold the purse-strings, 
she Avould go hungry and unclothed. 

A woman requires remarkable adaptability to live 
harmoniously with such a life-partner. She has to 
supply brains and heart and moi-al force to maintain 


182 A irOMAJV^ WITH A record. 

domestic relations which at times must be most dis- 
appointing. 

Fred Manton kept Heloise’s toilet table fragrant 
with roses during the tiresome days of her temporary 
seclusion. 

“ We are whiling away the hours instead of wheel- 
ing them away,” Heloise said, when her lover passed 
the evening with her instead of going to his club. 

The softening effect of youth and loveliness is ap- 
parent on Fred. Extreme solicitude for the girl of 
his heart has replaced his former restiveness. I think 
the young man has at last found his match. 

Heloise now wears Fred Manton’s betrothal ring. 
It is a ruby mounted in diamonds. The stones are 
of great value, and their brightness is symbolic of the 
girl’s future. 

Fred’s good qualities and indulgence do not win 
the heart of Heloise. To him she is all smiles, but I 
sometimes see a wee cloud upon her fair brow, which 
suggests to me the shadow of regret for Albert 
Vane. 

She is incapable of love. Her feelings never can 
rise beyond the flesh ; and the fetter which bound 
lier to Vane was of its forging. 

Fred’s people have not recognized the engagement 
which exists between Fred and Heloise Neville. It 
is possible that they never will, yet the girl’s beauty 
should win them as it did their son. 

Their opposition will have no weight with this 
pampered heir to their wealth. Since boyhood his 


A irOMAI^ triT/I A liECORl). 


183 


will has been as law to his mother and sister ; this is 
the first serious clash that they have felt. 

As is usual when love steers the wheel, the little 
life-craft will run into smooth waters. The proud 
Mantons will yield to its gentle yet forceful touch, 
and in the end they will accept both the wife of 
their son and her friend. 


184 


A WOMAN WITH A HECORD. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

DECEPTION BENEATH THE MASK OF LOVE. 

These long, golden May days should bring glad- 
ness to every one. Nature’s smile found its reflec- 
tion in my heart in the olden days, when I courted it 
amid dewy mornings in the crisp, luscious air of the 
mountains of Switzerland or by the placid waters of 
Lucerne. I used to revel in the brightness of Na- 
ture’s marvellous charm along the Elys^e or in the 
Bois. I delighted in summer mornings at Trouville 
or Dieppe, with the sea flasliing in the sun and tlie 
blue sky above and'the pretty women and children, 
with their l)0)ines, listening to the music, or strolling 
along the beach. 

The restiveness of travel is upon me. Women of 
my nature require perpetual motion. I sometimes 
feel that I could wander forever from ocean to ocean, 
exploring new lands and living new lives ; again m}'- 
spirit craves tlie quiet of a mountain retreat or a 
little village, white and quaint, nestling in a valley 
sheltered from the world b}' encircling hills. 

I am weary of the rusli of New York. The ex- 
citement of stock speculation wears on my nerves 
and racks my brain. The worry of my association 
with Maurel is greater than is its pleasure. I often 


A irOMAN iriTII A liECORD. 


186 


wonder why I was born, yet I feel that I will con- 
tinue to exist throughout endless ages. The craving 
for love seems to have left my heart. I cannot tell 
wJiat I long for noiv, maybe it is only for rest ! I 
must have the blue devils to-da}'. The chatter of 
Ileloise might arouse me to interest in the life wliich 
looks to me so hopeless. I am not en raijport with 
people wlio are away up or away down in spirits. 
This temperament indicates a weak nature. 3Iy 
spirits seem of late to be permanently down. 

I must shake off this apathy, even though it be 
with stimulants. The foreboding wliich overpowers 
me must have a meaning, and unless my premoni- 
tions err, its meaning relates to Solon Maurel ! I re- 
call writing of him as being at once my life’s charm 
and its sorrow. I might write of liim now as its sor- 
row alone. It puzzles me to define when the charm 
ceased and the sorrow began. This is an unsolved 
riddle in the hearts of most women who have loved ! 

Unlike nature’s beauties which are subject to re- 
newal, the flower of love fades and blooms no more. 
A suspicion, a wore! light as a zephyr, may kill love. 
A corpse in its shroud is not colder than is a dead 
passion. 

Heigh-ho ! I have here another sweet missive from 
my lover. 

“ Ma Cherie : 

“ I write to ask you and Heloise to join me in a box 
party at The Olympia to-night. Manton will meet 


186 A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 

US. I ’phoned him that I had just secured the box. 
It is nice to be in love as Fred is with his sweet- 
lieart and as I am with mine. Will you again accom- 
modate me with a green bill of three figures, which I 
am sure of doubling for you as well as for myself ? 

“Look your handsomest, and believe, until I can in 
words express my thanks and love, that I am 
“Ever your own, 

“ Solon.” 

Tuesday. 

After reading this note I walked the floor for five 
minutes : then I made an absinthe 

It required three cigarettes to calm me, and I even 
called my wee dog Yvette to my rescue. I felt like 
dashing both the animal and myself out of the win- 
dow ! 

This sudden change from the sentimentalism of my 
former mood was of benefit to me. Two frappSs 
stimulated me sufficiently to send for Heloise and 
to begin my toilet for a drive in the Park. 

Women often give ungrudgingly of their posses- 
sions to the men whom they love, but they wince at a 
demand from these men upon their purses. It hurts 
as the sharp edge of a knife blade might hurt if stuck 
into the flesh ! 

Upon the advent of Heloise, in her crisp, silken 
gown and big, rose-covered hat, my composure had 
so far returned as to decide me not to accede to the 
request of Maurel. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


187 


Heloise was radiant with pleasure during the va- 
riety performance at The Olympia, and she indulged 
in more than her share of champagne cocktails. 

“ Would that I could change my character as 
easily and as often as Fregoli does ! ” she exclaimed. 

“ I would not care to have you change your 
character, at all,” Heloise’s lover gallantly declared. 

“ Oh, I could improve upon it,” she retorted. “ I 
would give it the gorgeous coloring of Fregoli’s cos- 
tumes.” 

“ Neutral tints are often more desirable in the 
character of a woman,” Maurel ventured. 

“ I would not have grays and tans in mine. I pre- 
fer rainbow hues and the coloring of tbe pea-fowl,” 
the girl persisted. “ I was created for the glare and 
glitter of life I ” 

The self-knowledge which Heloise possesses is the 
chief factor in her success. She is artfully artful. 
I noticed that she beamed with more than usual 
complaisance on Solon. The thought came to me 
that with her avariciousness for men she was posing 
for Maurel’s admiration equally with that of Fred. 

Personal vanity is insatiable with Heloise. Not all 
the society men of the city could gratify it. It is like 
the unquenchable thirst which consumes men and 
leads them from theatres to salons. Heloise has 
somewhat the nature of a man with all her wom- 
an’s weaknesses. Possibly my nature is similar to 
here ! 

I noticed that Maurel touched the tip of Heloise’s 


188 


A irOMAJV WITH A BECOIW. 


foot, as it peeped from beneath her lace-trimmed petti- 
coat. Had Fred Mantoii seen this there would have 
been a war, but not “ A Merry One.” Fred is him- 
self too honest to indulge suspicion of other men, but 
I feel that his instincts against Maurel are justified. 

“ The inereasing success of Vaudeville proves that 
Americans giow more cosmopolitan in amusements 
as they do in all their customs,” I remarked. 

“New York is becoming moie like Paris, yet there 
is a void in my heart which only Paris can fill,” 
Maurel said, in his most languid tone. 

“ Paris will be to me as near heaven as I shall ever 
reach,” Heloise sighed. 

“ Then you shall shortly be in heaven,” Fred said 
under his breath to the girl. 

Heloise blushed. 

As my eyes wandered over the brilliant musie-hall 
scene, with the white and gold of its decorations 
and the smiling women in their flashing gowns, they 
rested on the vulgar face of Mrs. IMallory. Two 
men and a still more dSclassS woman were sipping 
wine, most likely at the expense of Maurel’s former 
mistress. 

I directed Maurel’s attention to her. 

“ Mrs. Mallory looks more dissipated than she did 
a few months ago,” I commented. 

“ She drinks more,” was Maurel’s reply. “ Let us 
change the subject, Lenoir,” he said, rather nerv- 
ously ; “give us something original to make us 
laugh.” 


A JFOMAN WITH A RECOIiD. 


189 


“ The performance should do that. I came here to 
be amused, not to amuse. Besides, I haven’t an idea,” 
I declared. 

“ Never have I seen you without ideas, and novel 
ones at that,” Fred joined in. 

“ What is an idea ? ” Heloise questioned in an at- 
tempt to corner me. 

“ An idea is a want. At ni}^ birth I had wants, so 
I must have had ideas. Women luive more ideas tlian 
men because tlie}^ have more wants, at least this is 
what men declare.” 

“ What is jmur idea now, what is your cliief want ? ” 
Fred good-naturedly asked. 

“ It is that great want which fills the heart of all 
the world — the wish for happiness,” I replied, glanc- 
ing directly into my lover’s eyes. 

A flush mounted to Maurel’s brow, not a royal 
flush, which would have delighted him, but a flush 
of shame ! 

The music of the orchestra rang joyously through 
the splendid hall ; the swish of women’s robes and 
the jingle of their laughter fell on my ears, but aroused 
no echo in my heart. Again I looked into the box 
where the haggard face of Mrs. Mallory gleamed like 
that of a hunted animal, for she had seen Maurel and 
me. Fiercer grew her eyes, redder her cheeks. She 
leaned over the box, and fixing her gaze upon Maurel, 
the woman hissed the one word : “ Blackguard ! ” 

Maurel’s face assumed an ashen hue. 

“ Let us go to some quiet place for supper,” he 


190 


A )r03{AN WITH A BECOJiD. 


whispered to me. “ I don’t like the look in Minnie 
Malloiy’s eyes to-night.” 

Maurel was a soriy host at supper. He drank 
much, but ate little, and the strange whiteness did not 
leave his face. 

“ Have you fear of Mrs. Mallory ? ” I said to him 
as he tied my wrap about my throat. 

He laughed sarcastically and answered, “ I know 
no fear of any woman ; but the devil was in Minnie 
Mallory’s eyes to-night ! ” 

Sympathy for the man touched my heart. I drew 
a jewel from my finger to give him to raise money 
on ; then the thought of the touch which he had given 
to the foot of Heloise barred all the flood-gates of my 
tenderness. I replaced the ring upon my finger. 

Again I passed a restless night with feverish 
dreams. 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


191 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

THE HISTORY OF HELOISE. 

Fred Manton called to-day, and wrote on liis 
card the request to see me alone. “ What is up ? ” 
I thought. “Can Fred and Heloise have quarrelled 
already, in the new moon of their love ? ” 

“ I wished to see you alone., because I would talk 
with you of Solon Maurel,” said Fred. 

“ Why of Maurel ? ” I hesitatingly inquired. 

“ See here, Lenoir,” Fred said, softly stroking my 
hand, “ you are my sort of woman. Had your ex- 
periences been less varied I would have been hope- 
lessly in love with you, but your views of life are too 
positive for me. I prefer to mould a woman’s tastes 
to my own.” 

“ Pray don’t apologize, Fred,” I suggested, with- 
drawing my hand from his. “ In matters of the heart 
we would not have suited one another. Your latest 
sweetheart is quite adapted to you.” 

Fred laughed, the jolly, little laugh of good fellow- 
ship that goes to my lieart and inspires the hope that 
he may never laugli less lightly. 

“ I have not professed friendship for Maurel, hence 
I do not violate its pledges in expressing to you my 
distrust of him,” Fred went on to say. 


11)2 


•I WOMAN Vt'iril A EECOIID. 


“ Since you have placed yourself beyond the ac- 
cusation of jealousy, I must listen to your reasons for 
this distrust,” I acquiesced. 

“ Women are not alone in instinct. Mine warns 
me that trouble awaits continuance of your relations 
with this Frenchman,” my visitor declared. 

I asked Fred if his dreams had been bad as mine 
were last night. 

“ I am too happy to have other than sweet dreams,” 
Fred sentimentally avowed. “ But men judge men 
outside of a woman’s presence, and the measurements 
that I took of Maurel after we left 3'ou last night 
did not please me. Selfishness is characteristic of 
the French, but this man inspires me as more tlian 
commonly wrapped up in himself. I did not like 
his allusions to Heloise. His cynicism regarding 
women will bring trouble to him some day. My in- 
tentions towards Heloise are honorable. I am desir- 
ous of paying her the compliment of giving my name 
to her.” 

“ Do you desire for me a similar compliment from 
Maurel?” I smilingly inquired. 

“ By no means ! ” Fred said, with fervor. 

“ You disapprove of marriage for me ?” I persisted. 

“ I disapprove of sacrifice for you,” Fred returned. 
“ Marriage is too beautiful a relationship to be de- 
graded by insincerity or infidelity.” 

I sighed for the future of the dashing young man 
who had given its fairest promises into the keeping 
of Heloise. 


A Tr03/ylJV WITH A RECORD. 


193 


Heaven help all men and women who build their 
mental and moral structures upon the sand of Fancies. 
The pitiless winds of disappointment moan about 
them ; the waves of distrust beat upon the fair fabrics 
of their dreams, and Life’s fiercest storms at last float 
them out into Life’s deepest and blackest ocean of 
Regret. 

Again Fred spoke, as with the voice of warning 
and of inspiration ; 

“Your association with Maurel will bring you 
sorrow and will have a tragic termination. He is 
nervous as to the designs of Mrs. Mallory. He 
drank heavily last night, and referred to the woman 
many times. Maurel usually is a bluffer and his un- 
rest indicated mental disturbance. 1 gathered that 
he fears harm to you or to himself, through this 
woman’s jealousy.” 

I thanked Fred and assured him that fear with me 
was a feeling of the past. 

“ I, too, have presentiments of evil that this woman 
may do,” I shudderingly said, “ but the harm will 
come to Maurel ! ” 

Fred Manton drew nearer to me and besought me 
with feeling to give up the acquaintance of Maurel. 
He anticipated much annoyance from Mrs. iMallory 
and sorrow and regret to me as the outcome of the 
friendship. 

“ I think you are right, Fred,” I admitted. “ Re- 
gret is the monument which time has reai-cd above 
the dead pleasures and forgotten follies of my life.” 

13 


194 


A 1F0MAJV WITH A RECORD. 


“ In matters of the heart women rarely follow their 
judgment,” Fred regretfully said. “ You think my 
counsel wise, but will you heed it ? ” 

“ I make no promise. I will float along with the 
tide. It is too late for me to shape the course of my 
own destiny,” I sadly declared. 

“ It is never too late for a woman to save herself,” 
Fred sighed. 

“ We must not indulge in too much sentiment, 
Fred,” I declared. “We will send for Heloise.” 

“ Who is Heloise ? ” 

“What do you mean, Fred?” I asked, turning 
sharply upon him. 

“ I mean that I have been too much attracted by 
Heloise to question her birth or her blood. Nor 
would I now except to satisfy the curiosity or the 
interest of my family regarding the girl whom I hope 
to wed.” 

I told Fred that Heloisfe Neville was born in New 
Orleans of an aristocratic father and rather plebeian 
mother, who died young, leaving to this girl the 
heritage of lier beauty. I did not admit that the 
mother of Heloise had been a variety actress, and 
that her lover married her on her death-bed, that the 
girl-child might bear his name. Nor did I offer the 
information that Neville was thrown over by his 
people for having done the only decent' deed of all 
his life. 

Continuing the tale, I told him that an aunt of 
Heloise’s father, attracted by the child’s beauty, took 


A WOMAN WITH A RECOBD. 


195 


charge of her education and offered her a home with 
her in the old French Quarter. Strangely, the child 
advanced to girlhood in the atmosphere of a convent 
and amid the qnaintness of this Southern home, with 
its antique furnishings of half a century back. 

The old lady loved the girl in an undemonstrative 
fashion, and she left her some antique gems, and 
sufficient money, in trust, to give her quite a fair in- 
come. 

“ Wliere did you first meet her and^what forged 
the bond of friendship between you?” Fred asked, 
with deepening interest. 

“ You wonder that the Nevilles would entrust the 
daughter of their son to a woman with such a record 
as mine ? ” I rather sneeringly said. 

“ You misinterpret me,” Fred feelingly declared. 
“ I will drop the subject. I care too much for my 
sweetheart to probe a past in which she had no choice. 
I am content with the knowledge that she is of re- 
spectable birth, and as to her income, of course I am 
utterly indifferent. I prefer that my wife receive all 
the good things of the world from me alone.” 

It surprised me that Fred did not question me as 
to the fatlier of \\\^ jiancSe ; but he was silent. 

I could have loved this man had I realized his 
nobility in the past as now. 

I felt it my duty to infoi’in this ardent lover that 
Heloise’s father was not dead, but practically lost to 
his people amid the wilds of Montana. Neville went 
out tliere to take, cliarge of a mine that failed in re- 


196 


A TF0.U.1JV WITH A RECORD. 


suits, and he remained there in silence, so far as Ids 
daughter was concerned. 

“ Does Heloise love her father? ” Fred questioned. 

“Not in the least,” I replied. “Being independ- 
ent of him, she is satisfied that lie makes no claim 
upon her.” 

I persisted in imparting to Fred the information 
that I liad first known Heloise in New Orleans at 
the home of her aunt, and that after the death of this 
lady the girl wished to come to New York with me 
on my return, after a visit to the birthplace of my 
mother. I did not add that I had known Neville in 
Europe j^eais before, when lie dashed from spa to 
spa, and from one capital to another, in the mad pur- 
suit of pleasure, and perchance of forgetfulness of the 
beautiful woman whom, all too late, he had made his 
Avife. 

The little sentiment which Heloise possesses is in- 
herited from her mother, avIio Avas madly infatuated 
Avith Neville, and singularly enough Avas true to him. 
Her Avorst qualities come from her father, if indeed 
there be anjdhing in the idea of inherited habits or 
vices. 

Fred told me that Heloise had spoken of her father 
as a successful mining man, and that beyond this he 
had not pressed the subject of her family. 

We sent for tlie girl, avIio quickly joined us Avith 
the suspicion of a froAvn on her Avhite broAv. This 
Avretched jealousy of hers is an equal inheritance Avith 
lier beauty from the impassioned Avoman Avho gave 


A irOMAN 11777/ A UECUlW. 


197 


lier birth and who rests beyond all human sorrow in 
her Southern grave. 

Fred soon drove the frown from his sweetheart’s 
face witli the suggestion of a drive and a dinner at 
Claremont. 

I anticipated a call from old Moneybags that even- 
ing, and I replied to a note of request from Maurel 
for my society at dinner, with a denial of his wish. 


198 


A WOMAN WITU A RECORD. 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE VOICE OF WARNING. 

A WEEK has passed since I saw Solon Maurel. 
He was indignant that his slave failed to do his bid- 
ding, both in the loan of money and in joining him 
at dinner. 

The influence of this man is silently fading from 
my life, yet there is within it a void which my fancy 
for him partially filled. 

It is woman’s nature to love some one, and none 
other remains for me to love ! I am less restive 
without a lover, yet less content. This seems anom- 
alous, but it is the true definition of my feelings. 
A lost love is to the heart as a lost chord is in 
music ! 

Mine is not the temperament to indulge in lovers’ 
quarrels. I prefer that life be a harmony. Each dis- 
cordant note sounded in the love-life of two people 
puts this life more and more liopelessly out of tune, 
until at last the melody is forever stilled. 

Love is only a shadow, a myth, a phantom of the 
air ! There is a sentiment we call Love, which, 
founded on tlie basis of respect and congeniality, out- 
lives the transitory thraldom of Passion’s spell. 


A WOMAN WITH A UECOliT). 


199 


Sadly, alas, I must record that this sentiment does not 
exist between Maurel and me. 

Again and forever the old cry for Love will sound 
in my heart. The old hunger will consume it ! 

Man finds pleasure in new fancies, but woman’s 
heart clings to the loves of her faded youth. 

The difference in the ph3’-sical nature of man and 
woman explains and emphasizes this condition. 

In my studies of life I have seen women of the 
strongest natures lavishing love on men of the weak- 
est. It is the inconsistency of the heart and the con- 
tradiction of human nature. 

There is in woman’s breast the strong maternal 
yearning that humors the weaknesses of her lover, 
as it would condone the offences of a spoiled 
child. 

Mother-love and that between the sexes contain 
similar elements of endurance, of pity and of for- 
giveness. 

Women of tender natures and of ordinary intellect 
often love weak men to the end of their checkered 
lives. But to women of superior intelligence the con- 
doning of vices and the nervous strain of pity are 
likely to freeze the fountain of their love. 

If man be born to guide the life of woman, why 
does he so pitilessly drag her down to his own level 
and beneath it? 

For each sin of womankind an angel drops a tear ! 
Upon each kindly deed she does an angel smiles ! 

Maurel would drag me lower still, I will not let 


200 


yi \vo:man with a nEConn. 


liiiu lead me where he lias led other women of his 
fancy and his whims — to the gutter or the grave ! 

My mental disturbance interferes with my success 
ill stocks. The pyrotechnics of sugar are calculated to 
craze the brain of any one who follows them. I seek 
their allui-ements out of sheer desperation, because 
they promise so brightly and disappoint so crush- 
ingl3\ To-day one may be ricli with golden results, 
and on the morrow these results vanish, as the soap- 
bubbles which hold the fancy of a child for an idle 
hour. 

Association with Maurel augments this fever and 
is one of its many evil effects. Fred Manton was 
right in his opinion that Maurel and I must part. 

In certain cases, only the surgeon’s knife can 
eliminate deadly poison from the human frame. 
Maurel’s love acts as a poison on my heart. A can- 
cerous growth will form upon it unless at once I 
plunge into it the knife of separation. 

Ah, tlie sorrow of it, the heartbreak of it ! To be 
thrown once more adrift on T-i^e’s tempestuous sea! 

I was disturbed in my writing by the card of 
Albert Vane being brought to me. I received him, 
because, to the blackness of my mood, any relief was 
welcome. 

The broker was more than usually debonair and his 
coat-flower had attained greater proportions. 

“ We have not met of late,” I smiling said, as I 
touched Vane’s hand in greeting. 

Character is defined by the hand, equally with 


A iro2\fAN irrni a becoed. 


201 


birth. Albert Vane’s baud denotes plebeian blood ; 
it is broad, coarse of texture, with stubby fingers. 

Vane once had a fad for having these fingers man- 
icured, but with the frown of the comely artist in 
nails, his interest flagged. Now tliese nails are dull 
and shapeless. 

However, Albert Vane is immaculate as to linen 
and the cut of his clothes. 

“ I hear tliat Miss Neville is to marry Fred Manton. 
It is the gossip of the Clubs,” Ahane ventured, by way 
of introduction to our tete-d-tete. 

I assured him that for once the male denizens of 
the Clubs Avere correct in their surmises. 

Vane commented on the good fortune of Heloise. 

“ The gods award to Beauty all their good gifts,” 
I declared. 

“ Not always, Lenoir,” my visitor dissented. “ AVo- 
man’s beauty, alas, often pays its penalty in sorrow. 
But I honestly trust that Heloise may be the excep- 
tion which proves the rule. You divined, with your 
woman’s intuition, that I felt no real love for the girl, 
and I am most pleased that she will realize her fond- 
est hopes in marriage.” 

“AYhat are these hopes?” I questioned. 

“Success in life and temporal pleasures,” Vane 
explained, with a shrug of his shoulders. “ Beyond 
these results, Heloise Neville lias no ambition.” 

“ You do not imagine that deep down in her breast 
may linger the dream of tliat strange, sweet liliss to 
which love alone can give realization?” 


202 


A WOMAN WITIT A RECOIiJ). 


“ Absolutely no ! ” Vane emphatically declared. 
“ This girl is incapable of an emotion beyond those 
of the senses ! She can enjoy, but she can not 
lover 

“ Could you ? ” 

“ Possibly not now, after my experience with wo- 
men and my hard knocks in the great prize-ring of 
the world. I once built castles in the air, as may- 
be you have done, but, Lenoir, we are of the earth 
earthy. We indulge in no fine sentimentality, we 
accept life as it comes to us, instead of idealizing it 
and finding in the end that our dolls are filled with 
sawdust.” 

I told him that, without being pemonal, I felt some 
interest as to the meaning of his visit to-night. 

“ It is to warn you against Solon Maurel,” lie con- 
fessed. “ Through me you met liim ; let me separate 
you from him. His old sweetheart, or whatever you 
may term her, is on the rampage. She swore to me 
to separate you from Maurel, or to kill him. Usually 
these threats from women are meaningless, but in the 
eye of Mrs. Mallory is a dancing devil which broods 
ill both to Maurel and to you.” 

“ I thwarted your desire as to Heloise ; whence 
springs this interest regarding me ? ” I sneered. 

“ Because I am man enough to recognize your sense 
of justice and to desire to mete out to you the same 
measure that in the future I shall hope to have meted 
unto me.” 

Silence fell between us. 


A IFOMAN jVITH A RECORD. 


203 


“The world is brighter' than I pictured it,” I 
thouglit. “ Men are fairer than my fancy painted 
them.” I reached out and grasped the hand of my 
enemy, Albert Vane, and from our hearts forever was 
lifted the shadow of distrust. 


204 


A WOMAN WITH A BECOED. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

A SHATTERED IDOL. 

Heloise bounded into my sitting-room this noon, 
liaving on her finger a golden purse, its top encrusted 
with rubies. 

“ Fred is a darling ! ” the girl exclaimed. 

I agreed with Heloise, and congratulated her on 
having drawn so great a prize in the lottery of love. 

The girl has grown more refined under my tui- 
tion. She wears Hudnut’s Violette inside the 

band of her hat or sewed into her gown instead of 
pungent perfumes spiinkled on her ’kerchief, and her 
taste as to the toilet improves. She was ravishing 
to-day in a gown of grass linen, embroidered with 
rosebuds, and made over reseda silk. Her big Panama 
hat, with its wealth of roses and clouds of tulle, was 
tilted over her piquant face. In her corsage a rose 
nodded its dewy head. Heloise touclied it lightly, 
and laughed. 

“ Don’t be jealous, Lenoir,” she said, “ wlien I ac- 
knowledge that Solon Maurel sent me a box of roses 
this morning.” 

I assured the girl that it was quite thoughtful in 
Maurel ; but I felt that he sent the flowers to punisli 


A WOMAN WITH A liECORD. 


205 


me for not having given him the money for which 
lie had asked. 

Tliis was tlie smallest and most unmanly of any of 
Maiirel’s recent demonstrations of pique. 

A slight wound inflicted by one’s lover hurts a 
woman’s heart as much as a great sorrow does. 

In the early days of our association, this little at- 
tention from Maurel to tlie girl who Avas considered 
my friend, would have aroused my jealousy of both. 
But since Maurel’s influence has partially left me lu}'- 
heai t seems so ossified that I no longer can feel. 

“ I will bring j^ou some roses,” Heloise offered, 
hastily leaving the room ; and returning in a moment, 
she threw six gorgeous long-stemmed roses in my lap. 

“I have divided M. Maurel’s gift with you. I 
dare say he meant that Ave share it,” Heloise SAveetly 
said. 

At times this girl of the South mingles Avith much 
of selfishness much of charm. It is sad that one so 
fair should lack moral principles and the high senti- 
ments Avhich Avould render her character as perfect 
as her face. 

There is in Avoman loveliness of the soul and love- 
liness of the body ; the one is imperishable, the other 
fades as a flower in the scorching sun. 

- “ I am very angry that Fred’s j)eople do not call 
on me. What reason have they for declining to knoAV 
me ? ” Heloise laughingly asked. 

“The Nevilles of Louisiana have better blood than 
the Maiitons of NeAV York,” the girl AA'ent on. “ My 


206 


A WOMAN WITH A llECORD. ■ 


father comes of Huguenot ancestry. Tlie Mantons 
are comparatively new. But they are in the social 
swim. Were my aunt living, I am not sure that she 
would regard an alliance with Fred Man ton an 
honor.” 

It is odd that Heloise does not suspect that the 
distrust with which Fred’s people view his marriage 
arises from the Bohemianism in which the girl has 
lived. This is greatly my fault. Tales have floated 
over the sea of my giddy life on the Continent. The 
IMantons have followed my comet-like course from 
Petersburg to Paris, from London to Madrid. They 
imagine that my chaperonage is not the likeliest to 
shield a young woman from the ready tongue of 
gossip. 

With a breath I could break up this intended mar- 
riage. Fred’s love would not survive the knowledge 
of Heloise’s episode with Albert Vane, or if his love 
lingered, his respect for the girl would die, and he 
would not insult his people with a wife whose honor 
was smirched. 

This marriage must take place. I am honest in my 
belief that it will reform Heloise. The luxury of her 
life and her husband’s devotion surely will satisfy 
her wandering fancy. 

Mrs. Caton awaited my return from the drive; 
Heloise left us to arrange her toilet for the evening 
with her lover. 

Mrs. Caton has quite a level head as to the status 
and bearings of her associates. 


A W03fAN WITH A RECORD. 


207 


“ Heloise Neville does not improve on nearer ac- 
quaintance,” the little widow declared. “ She amuses 
me, and as Mrs. Fred Manton she will be a good card 
to play ; but between ourselves, Lenoir, I distrust the 
girl. I don’t wish to figure as a newsmonger, but I 
feel it a privilege of our friendship to inform you that 
I ran across Heloise and Solon Maurel tippling at the 
Waldorf yesterday. The little beauty smiled most 
luxuriantly into the Frenchman’s face. The incident 
liad no import, as the world of New York goes, but 
it impresses me as treachery on her part towards 
you.” 

“ What of Maurel’s lack of faith ? ” I smiled. 

“ Men are never true in detail or in mattera of 
moment. They were created for the gratification of 
their passions, only,” Mrs. Caton declared, with flash- 
ing eye. 

“With all their faults. you love them still.” 

“ Most decidedly. Heaven preserve me from a 
Paradise of women.” 

I told Mrs. Caton that neither the actions of He- 
loise nor those of Solon bothered me a little bit. But 
I commented that the girl should not take chances 
of incurring the suspicion or anger of Fred Manton. 

“ That poor, misguided boy is too much the slave 
of his fancy for Heloise to be offended at her public 
tete-d-tStes with the sweetheart of his friend,” said the 
widow, with a toss of her head. 

“ Manton would be deeply grieved did he believe 
that Heloise Neville and Maurel were meeting alone, 



208 


A WOMAN W7TII A RE CORD. 


either publicly or privately. He has no admiration 
for Maurel,” I persisted. 

“ You too are wearying of Maurel ! ” 

“Possibly I am. I have so long been a bird of 
passage that I cannot locate either my affections or 
myself.” 

“ This is well and saves you much sorrow. It is 
the secret of eternal youth for women. Your love 
of change and carelessness of temperament banishes 
wrinkles from your brow and your heart. Nothing 
is really worth a deep regret, though we are tempted 
to dream again our old love-dreams and mend our 
broken idols. My policy is to dissipate regretful vis- 
ions with golden pictures of to-day and to toss the 
old idols aside with the rubbish of our past,” said 
Mrs. Caton, with a little sigh, which indicated a dash 
of sentimentality in her nature. 

After Mrs. Caton left me I pondered long and 
wearily upon the incompleteness of life. I dwelt 
deeply upon its sins and its sorrows. I measured my 
would-be lover, Maurel, and found him wanting in 
tlie forceful element of life. 

Strangely Passion’s spell is slipping from me. 
With the clearer vision that my brain affords, I see, 
with Maurel, only sorrow. Could I pray to the dear 
God from whom I have wandered, the temper of m3" 
pra3’’er would be that He might deliver me from the 
thralldom of my association with Solon Maurel. 


A }rOMA2^ tVITH A RECORD. 


209 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

A TRAITOR AND A TRAITRESS. 

I RECEIVED Maiirel this afternoon. His brow was 
clouded, Ids manner Avas changed. 

“ You no longer care for me, Lenoir,” he said. 

“ AVhy sliould I?” said I, in a despondent tone. 

“ Wh}^ did you ever care forme? ” Maurel asked. 

“ Because my heart clamored for love. I was 
adrift on life’s gi-eat boundless sea. You first in- 
terested me, then followed tlie subtle spell of fas- 
cination, intensified by similar tastes and close asso- 
ciation. Stronger grew the bond, brighter became 
my hopes for a future built upon the ashes of a black- 
ened past. Life to me had been a burlesque. I 
trusted that you might make it a pleasing reality. I 
hoped to save from the shipwreck of my past a few 
splinters, which, bound together by your love, might 
prove of sufficient weight to float us both into a safe 
anchorage. Instead of reaching a port of peace, wo 
hare drifted beyond the line of safety, into the broad 
sea of doubt and of danger. The winds sigh about 
us, the great waves lash upon us, the sk}^ of our lives 
is dark and starless. Each moan of tlie winds brings 
to me a sigh of regret and a wlUsper of despr.ir. 

14 


210 


A WOMAN^ jrifH A RECORD. 


We can no longer float. The little raft of our hopes 
is falling in pieces. The sea of doubt overwhelms 
ns. We are sinking together. You are now, as you 
were when first we met, a gamester, and, I fear, a 
liar, as well. Solon Maurel, we have drifted together 
long enough. Would I save myself it must be at 
tlie sacrifice of leaving, you.” 

My speech was less impassioned than was the heart 
that prompted it. Maurel frowned and drew further 
from me. 

“ What better are you than me ? ” he sneered. 
“ You are a failure like myself.” 

“ Your words are brutal, but true,” I admitted. 
“ I aw a failure ; and the greatest proof I have given 
of this has been my association with you.” 

“ You are a gambler ! ” Maurel gasped. 

“ Alas, you speak truly ! ” I sadly said. “ I am 
powerless to resent your insults. I can only vow that 
having benefited from the results of my gambling, 
and having disgraced yourself by taunting me with 
the practice of a vice alike degrading to both man 
and woman, from this moment I forever place myself 
beyond the reach of either your insults or your pres- 
ence.” 

“ Lenoir, you are mad. Let us forget these words 
of fury. Let us seek in love the obliteration of 
anger,” Maurel said with a gleam of the old passion 
in his eyes. 

For answer, I rang my bell. 

“ Show this man to the lift,” I sharply said to the boy. 


A WOMAN- WITH A EECOliD. 


211 


After the departure of Maurel I went into the 
dainty little suite of rooms occupied by Heloise. 
The sitting-room walls were hung in old rose denim, 
and covered with French pictures in white and gold 
frames. The lace curtains were tied back with broad 
ribbons of the same color over sasli-curtains of old- 
rose silk. A white and gold cabinet held varied bits 
of choice bric-a-brac. Among these stood a long- 
stemmed vase of silver filagree, containing a single 
La France rose. A great bunch of violets and lilies 
of the valley had been carelessly thrown on a gilt 
table, which also held, in a gold frame inlaid with 
turquoise, the photogi-aph of Fred Manton. 

The adjoining bedroom was done in French cre- 
tonne, and the pink-lined lace-spread on the sliining 
brass bedstead was littered with hats, gloves and 
veils, indicating the haste in which Heloise had 
made her toilet for the street. On the dressing-table, 
amid a lot of Dresden-mounted toilet articles, was a 
new set of five pieces in tortoise shell. These evi- 
dently had been sent to the girl to-day by her lover. 
His picture, framed in antique brocade, was among 
the pretty bagatelles. 

“ Heloise burns the incense of flattery at her lover’s 
shrine,” I murmured to m^'^self. 

Glancing more closely at Manton’s picture, which, 
like the toilet set, was new to me, I discovered an 
open note in the nervous French chirography of 
Maurel. 

I read this note for confirmation of my suspicions 


212 


A WOMAN WITH A BECOliD. 


regarding both of these so-called friends of mine. 
It read like this : 

“ Heloise, 

“ Meet me at noon to-morrow at the same place. 

“S. Maueel.” 

The man knew the girl well enough to command 
her movements. 

As a revelation the thought came to me that 
Maurel was attempting his arts upon Heloise, in view 
of her coming marriage, in order that he might bene- 
fit financially by it. 

“ A traitor and a traitress, deeply and doubly- 
d3'^ed ! Let them sink together into the perdition 
which awaits them ! ” I thought, as I turned away 
from the flower-perfumed rooms. My intention of 
leaving a note for Heloise to go with me to a theatre 
in the evening was entirely changed bj" the circum- 
stance of this note. I felt an aversion to her fail- 
face. 

Could there linger in my heart one spark of feel- 
ing for my false lover ? Alas ! I knew not if this 
Avere true ! I realized more than I ever had the 
fickleness and folly and abandonment to evil of the 
beings with whom we link our lives, and who drag 
us into the shadows of eternal doubt. 

I went alone for my drive, and I wore violets 
which had come to me that morning with Money- 
bags’ card. 


A ]VOMAN iriTlI A RECOIil). 


213 


As my horses pranced through the Park, I thonglit 
so deeply that the splendid panorama passed un- 
noticed by me. I drove until tlie sun set and the 
shadows fell among the trees. Nature is to me a 
great tonic. It rebuilds the tissues of my brain and 
purifies my heart. Before seeking her soothing in- 
fluence, I had been tempted to revenge myself on 
the Frenchman a'nd to cloud the future of Heloise. 
I almost felt it to be my duty to warn Fred Manton 
against her treacliery to both himself and me. 
But the sweet voice of charity whispered, “ Give 
the girl her chance.” I came home calm and re- 
signed to the loveless life which lay before me. 

A hasty tap at my door announced Heloise. Never 
had the girl's beauty beamed more brilliantly than 
as she skipped into tlie room in her bicycle suit. 
The sliort plaid skirt readied to the top of her 
doeskin leggins, below which peeped out her liigli- 
heeled patent leather slioes. An Eton jacket of 
dark blue cloth opened over a red waistcoat, buttoned 
witli tiny gold buttons. She wore a gray Alpine 
hat witli two dark blue wings at the side. 

“ Fred is downstairs awaiting your acceptance of 
his invitation for dinner at tlie Holland House, and 
later a music hall, if you like,” the girl animatedly 
said, tossing a box of bonbons in my lap. 

A sudden desire to be alone swept over me and in- 
fluenced me to decline the proffered pleasure. 

Three hours later I received Albert Vane’s card, 
on which he had Avritten these Avords : 


214 


A WOMAN- WITH A liECOET). 


“ I must see you at once. Maurel is dying.” 

When the broker was ushered into my sitting-room 
his pallid face corroborated the tragedy which his 
written words implied. 

“ Maurel has been hurt? ” I gasped. 

“Quite true,” Vane acknowledged. “He was 
stabbed in his chambers by Mrs. Mallory an hour 
ago.” 

“ Will he die ? ” I asked, with quivering voice, 
for in the face of death a woman’s heart recalls the 
old tenderness for a man whom she lias loved. 

“Undoubtedly he will,” Vane sighed. “Come 
with me, Lenoir ; Maurel asked for you. It is the 
last request that he will ever make.” 

As I did when the child of this man lay dying, I 
hastily shrouded myself in a cloak and accompanied 
my messenger to the death-bed of Maurel. We 
were silent during the short drive. I was more 
silent still when I stood beside the wounded man. 

“ She stabbed me,” he whispered. “ I deserved it 
for my treachery to womankind. I have played my 
last card, Lenoir, and lost. Forgive me and distrust 
Heloise.” 

Maurel’s dying words betrayed a woman’s honor ! 

The film of death gathered over his eyes, his voice 
grew husky ; then eternal silence sealed his lips and 
Solon Maurel’s career was ended. 

The midnight stars shone in the blue sky which 
crowned the beautiful night as Albert Vane and I 
drove back to my home. 


A jro.v.livr WITH a record. l>i5 

“ Has your expeiience with Solon Maurel hurt 
you?” my companion questioned. 

“ Yes,” I acknowledged. “ Betrayal of human 
faith kills human hope, and hope is the well-spring 

of joy.” 

“ Peace may come to you at last,” Vane softly 
whispered. 

“ Alas, it cannot ! ” I sighed. “ For me, its white 
wings are forever folded, and in its place the blood- 
red banner of success flaunts its gaudy coloring. 
Love demands sorrow as its price. Success brings 
comfort in atonement for the lost angels of hope and 
happiness. Love is a maiden, all gauze and smiles 
and visions. Hope is a matron with flowers yet un- 
withered and gems undimmed. Success is a queen, 
at whose feet both youth and age lay the garlands 
of Love and Hope in exchange for the laurel of 
Victory.” 

My companion informed me that he had gathered 
from Maurel’s man some explanation of the tragic 
end of the Frenchman’s life. Mrs. Mallory had gone 
alone to Maurel’s chambers and persisted in remain- 
ing until his return. She paced the floor, evidently 
in an excited mood. Wlien Maurel arrived, the man 
overheard angry words, coupled with the name of 
Heloise. Maurel vainly strove to soothe the woman, 
when suddenly he gave a sharp cry, and Mrs. Mallory 
glided from the rooms, past the French valet and 
dashed down tlie stairs. Tlie man opened the door 
through which slie had passed out, and entering the 


216 


.1 iro.v.i.v WITH a record. 


room, lie found Maurel lying on the floor with a 
small dagger of antique workmanship on a rug be- 
side him. It was stained with blood. The man 
hastily summoned the landlord and sent for a physi- 
cian. On the hilt of the dagger were the initials 
“ M. M.'” The man then telegraphed Albert Yane 
as the friend most familiar with the life of the French- 
man ; and Vane fulfilled Maurel’s dying request that 
he would bring me there. 

“ Where did Maurel’s murderess disappear to, 
and how long can she elude the police ? ” I 
asked. 

“ The physician notified the authorities of the 
murder, but the woman’s residence was known only 
to me, and I kept her secret. She will, no doubt, 
sail under an alias from another city, for foreign 
shores, and it is unlikely that she will ever meet 
the punishment of her crime,” said Yane. 

Mrs. Mallory seemed too clever to have left behind 
her the proof of her bloody deed. 

“ A woman crazed with jealous anger is too insane 
to control her actions,” Yane declared. 

“ Heloise Neville was the immediate cause of this 
murder,” I avowed to Yane. “ Maurel’s last words to 
me were ‘ Distrust Heloise.’ I have proof of the 
wisdom of such an injunction in a note which I saw 
from him, asking that she meet him to-morrow. The 
woman who had followed Maurel over continents 
and seas must also have had proof against the girl 
that made her desperate. This girl’s fatal charin has 


.1 WOMAN WITH A RECOliD. 


217 


cost a human life and will lead to her own destruc- 
tion. Beauty is a gift of the gods for happiness, or 
an allurement of the devil for sin. Leave me, now,” 
I murmured to my guest. “ Let me think out this 
problem of the future of Heloise Neville.” 


218 


A fFOMAN WITH A RECORD, 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

heloise’s last chance. 

Heloise dashed into my apartment on the follow- 
ing morning with a newspaper containing a distorted 
account of the death of Solon iMaurel. The story 
ran that the man had been stabbed by a woman, sup- 
posed to have been his wife, from whom he had sep- 
arated, and that the murder was the result of his lack 
of support of her. It mentioned the fact of a knife 
of quaint, foreign workmanship having been found 
near the bedside of the dead man, and there was an 
allusion to Maurel’s attentions to a dashing French- 
woman, well known in society both here and abioad. 
The name of Heloise was fortunately omitted from 
the article, which wound up with the hope that the 
efforts of the detectives might prove availing to 
bring the supposed murderess to justice. 

“ Wliat does this mean ? ” Ileloiso cried out. 

I told her that it meant that Mrs. IMallory had 
stabbed her former lover in his chambers on the 
preceding niglit. 

“ When did you hear of this ? ” the girl asked, with 
rising color. 


A IFOMAN 11777/ .1 UECOUl). 'il'J 

“ Immediately after the stabbing and the escape of 
the woman,” I replied. 

Heloise scowled and declared it odd that I had not 
notified her at the time. 

“ It was late in the evening when Albert Vane 
and I returned from the death-bed of Manrel, and 
I had no reason to believe that you would care to 
have your sleep disturbed with such tragic news.” 

Heloise impatiently paced the room. 

“ Who will get possession of Maurel’s belongings ? ” 
she anxiously inquired. 

“ They will undoubtedly be held until Albert 
Vane receives instructions from Solon’s relatives in 
France. He left to them no legacy but debts, and to 
the world no memory but that of his dishonor,” I 
sighed. 

“ Why did Mrs. Mallory kill Maurel? Was she 
prompted to it by jealousy of you f ” the girl asked, 
with the look of a sleuth-hound in her dark eyes. 

“ No. She was suspicious of and infuriated by 
your recent conduct with her lover,” I scornfully 
said. “ The murder of Maurel should rest upon 
your soul.” 

“I fail to comprehend your meaning,” the girl 
said, watching me narrowly. 

“You understand me perfectly,” I insisted. “If 
your conscience be not quite dead, it hurts you now 
for having betrayed a Avoman’s trust and a man’s 
honor, as you did in your secret meetings with Soloi\ 
Maurel.” 


i220 WITH A RECORD. 

Heloise’s eyes grew stony, as she faced me with 
folded arras. 

“ What shall you do about it ? ” she defiantly asked. 

“ This question puzzled me during my long vigil 
last night. I have solved it at last. As the good 
God gives us a final chance, so will I give your last 
chance to you. Marry Fred Manton with your 
wretched secrets buried in my heart and in that of 
Albert Vane and in the dead man’s grave. Present 
to the world on your wedding-day a picture of inno- 
cence and love ; but remember that while I live to 
know it, you shall not deceive j’^our husband as you 
have deceived your lover. On this great oppor- 
tunity your soul’s salvation rests. Hasten your 
bridal day. I will see you through this affair until 
the strong arms and noble heart of your husband 
shall embrace and shield you from life’s sorrows and 
sins. Ere your bridal flowers shall fade I will have 
parted from you for a long journey that may bring 
me rest.” 

Heloise’s mood softened. She had won the day, 
and girl-like she began to cry. 

“ You always have been kind to me, Lenoir, kinder 
than I deserved,” she sorrowfully admitted. “ But, 
I promise you that this awful lesson shall not be 
lost on me. I will remember your warning, and my 
duty to Fred Manton.” 


A WOMAN WITH .1 liEOOUD. 


221 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

THE TRUMP WHICH TAKES THE TRICK OF LIFE. 

Paris is radiant with sunshine and fragrant with 
flowers. As I drove this afternoon in the Bois my 
mood responded to the brilliant scene. The air of 
Paris is an antidote for soirow. 

Fred Man ton and his smartly-gowned wife passed 
me at the entrance to the Bois. Her husband’s family 
have accepted Heloise, and her beauty and style are 
causing 9. furore. Heloise brought me a jewelled fan 
which had belonged to Madame Du Barry, of whose 
mercurial career there remains to the world only the 
cut of a corsage, the shade of a ribbon and a fashion 
for the coiffure. 

Albert Vane called at my hotel last evening to ask 
me to dine with him to-night at the Caf6 des Ambas- 
sadeurs. Vane has made some money and is out for 
the grand tour during his brief holiday. He brought 
the news of Mrs. Caton’s marriage to quite a young 
man of some wealth, and also informed me that he 
had seen Mrs. Mallory in Paris, heavily veiled and 
walking with a stick from a shop to her coupe. 

Retribution will strike its fatal fangs into her 
wretched heart ; fortlie woman loved Maurelinher 


222 


A WOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


coarse and reckless way. She may evade the law, 
but she cannot drown the memories of her ill-spent 
and darkened life. 

The Mantons have asked me to accompany them 
to Switzerland, but Heloise’s old charm for me has 
forever fled, and, much as I would like to please Fred, 
I have not the duplicity to accept the friendship of 
his wife. 

I met Mrs. Steele this morning at the Louvre. 
She is still in search of new furbelows, and possibly 
of a new husband. She seemed strangely aged, be- 
neath the glare of the sun, and she was more than 
usually rouged. In her ceaseless pui-suit of happiness 
this accomplished and clever woman has neglected 
her great opportunities of making others happy the 
while. Mrs. Steele is a marvel of feminine success and 
failure. 

Long ago that greatest and truest interpreter of 
human emotions— Thackeray wrote : “ Which of us has 
his desire, or, having it, is satisfied ? ” To the public 
and the critics who may read this record of the people 
who have shaped my life I, too, submit the question. 

Do we not pursue phantoms and blot the sky of 
pleasure with clouds of discontent ? If life’s rough 
road lead at last into the smooth and shaded path of 
contentment, we shall have fulfilled our heart’s dear- 
est hope. 

The past few months seem vanished from me like 
a hideous dream. Memory strikes the chord, long 
.'.tilled, of my forgotten love, and to-night, amid the 


A )VOMAN WITH A RECORD. 


223 


splendor of the world’s gayest centre, my heart aclies 
for the old sweet days and the old sweet love of Her- 
bert Lee. 

As a drowning person realizes a lifetime within a 
second, my past sweeps over me as I float onward 
into the unsounded sea of the future. 

Moneybags writes that he misses me amid the 
drudgery of his business life. He seems without 
other motive than the accumulation of wealth. He 
thinks of coming abroad for diversion and to see me ! 
Unless fate intervene, I shall play Moneybags — the 
ace of diamonds — as my last trump, which shall take 
the trick of Life ! 


THE END. 
















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